


By Any Other Name (I Will Always Feel the Same)

by isthatbloodonhisshirt (wasterella)



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Angst with a Happy Ending, Attempted Murder, Because they can't actually die, Blood and Torture, Blood and Violence, Canon-Typical Violence, Derek Hale Deserves Nice Things, Derek Hale is Bad at Feelings, Don't copy to another site, Emotionally Hurt Derek Hale, Emotionally Hurt Stiles Stilinski, Erica Reyes Lives, Evil Gerard Argent, Falling In Love, Getting Together, Gun Violence, Hurt Stiles Stilinski, Idiots in Love, Immortals, Injured Derek Hale, Injured Sheriff Stilinski, Injured Stiles Stilinski, M/M, Major character death - Freeform, Murder, Or they don't stay dead rather, Sad with a Happy Ending, Stiles Stilinski is a Nice Thing, The Old Guard AU, Torture, Vernon Boyd & Derek Hale Friendship, Vernon Boyd & Erica Reyes Live, Vernon Boyd Lives, Violence, Warning: Gerard Argent, except not really, kind of, unkillable
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-25
Updated: 2020-09-25
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:46:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 109,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26636806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wasterella/pseuds/isthatbloodonhisshirt
Summary: Stiles very slowly reached up with both hands and covered his neck as best he could before whispering, “Are you Vampires?”“What? No.” Derek couldn’t help the small laugh of disbelief that slid up his throat, crossing his arms defensively over his chest. It didn’t matter that he was thousands of years old, or that he was bigger and stronger than Stiles was. Somehow, he was pretty sure once this conversation was over, Stiles was going to be able to crush him like a bug, and he hated that feeling.“Didn’t you say he was smart?” Boyd asked.“Hey,” Stiles insisted, turning to him with a glare but not removing his hands from his neck. “Vampires is a perfectly logical guess in this case. And hesaidI was right on the Supernatural front. Vampires are Supernatural.”“He said you weren’twrong,” Boyd corrected. “Not that you wereright.”“Well, the opposite of wrongisright, so...” Stiles gave him a look, but turned back to Derek relatively quickly, as if realizing he was delaying his own answers.“We’re not Vampires,” Derek said, then let out a small sigh before admitting, “we’re immortal.”--Or: The Old Guard AU nobody asked for (except me).
Relationships: Derek Hale/Stiles Stilinski, side Vernon Boyd/Erica Reyes - Relationship
Comments: 254
Kudos: 1297





	1. How It All Started...

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pandane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pandane/gifts).



> HAPPY (very belated I suck) BIRTHDAY BB! I switched gears because your original birthday fic was NOT cooperating, and you like The Old Guard so... I did my best!!! Hope you like it :3 
> 
> I also feel like I need you (and I suppose repeat readers) to see me as Aladdin in that scene with Carpet and Jasmine where he holds out his hand and goes “Do you trust me?” Because for real, do you trust me? If you trust me, then read this fic knowing you trust me no matter what happens. If you don’t trust me, the ‘x’ is in the top corner :)  
> (And if you’re new here, I guess you can decide how you feel about me after you choose whether to trust me or not and see where it leads you LOL) 
> 
> Few things for people to note:  
> 1) This is an AU for The Old Guard. So yes, it’s tagged Major Character Death just so people don’t scream at me over not tagging it, but please know that NO MAJOR CHARACTERS ACTUALLY DIE. Well, no, they do, constantly, they just come back. Over and over again. Like cockroaches. Except not, because they’re not cockroaches. Point is, major character death only because major characters constantly die, but they come back, so it’s A-OK! 
> 
> 2) Things I hate: Maths, and History.  
> Things that were required for this fic: Maths, and History.  
> I did my best with what Google gave me, but I am not well versed in history, and I literally suck at maths. This is based on a movie about immortals using characters from a show about Werewolves. If you can suspend disbelief while watching those, you can suspend disbelief and excuse some inaccuracies while reading this fic |D (also read as: Try and have some fun and joy in your life, for the love of God). 
> 
> 3) There is a lot of violence in this. And a lot of unpleasant deaths. And some of the characters kill a lot of people. It’s a necessary thing for the basis of the plot, so if seeing Derek stab someone in the throat or Kira shoot someone in the face isn’t your jam, neither is this fic. Additional warnings not in the tags are at the bottom of each chapter. If you choose not to read them, that’s on you. 
> 
> 4) For the purposes of this fic, 2020 is not a dumpster fire of a year 8D 
> 
> As always, you can reach out to me on [Tumblr](https://isthatbloodonhisshirt.tumblr.com/) if you want to ask any fic specific questions. Happy reading o/ 
> 
> Huge thank you to Adara and swlfangirl for listening to me bitch and whine and helping with medical stuff, y’all are the bestest <3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional tags/warnings at the end of the chapter.

He didn’t remember the first time he died. It had been so long ago now, it may as well have been a dream. An awful, horrible, terrible dream. He remembered the fear right before it happened. He remembered the worry for his family. He remembered the stab of pain. And he remembered waking up confused.

He remembered throwing up. He remembered walking through the burned, charred remains of his home. Walking past all the corpses, all the carnage. He remembered being alone. 

That day was burned into his mind like nothing else ever would be. No matter how much time passed, no matter how many years went by, how many more times he died, he would never forget that day.

He just couldn’t recall _how_ he’d died. Sometimes he thought someone had shot him in the head, but then he remembered that guns hadn’t been invented yet. He was alive before they’d started using steel, and iron, and any of those other metals. He remembered the first time he held a blade, and it had definitely been bronze at the time. 

He might have been stabbed. It was possible. Or maybe he’d been burned alive in his home with his family, same as so many others. He didn’t know. He remembered the pain, but like it was from a dream. The kind of pain that people felt when watching those they loved experiencing it. 

A kind of phantom pain that ached every now and then, despite it having long ago healed. 

We wished he remembered the first time he’d died. Wished he could try and figure out _why_ , exactly, what had happened to him _had_ happened. For years after, he’d tried to make sense of it. He’d tried to understand why he’d survived when everyone else had perished. 

And every time he was attacked, every time he went to war, every time he fought _anyone_... even when he died, even when he felt the life slipping away from him, even when he _knew_ he was leaving this plane of existence...

He always came back. 

Over and over and over again. 

Constantly returning to his body with a harsh gasp of air, and a phantom pain where he’d been mortally wounded. And every time, he would stand up, look around, and wonder why. 

Why, why, _why_? 

He wanted to rest. He wanted to be at peace. He wanted to _see his family_. 

Growing up, he’d learned about the Gods. About the Underworld, and all the places he could end up down there. He doubted he’d transgressed enough to end up in Tartarus, but he was hopeful for Asphodel. He just wanted to be with the people he loved, with his family. He wanted this to end. 

But it didn’t end. Every time he died in battle, he woke up again like nothing happened. Before his first time dying, he remembered being injured. He remembered cutting himself, having blisters on his feet, various burns and injuries. He had scars marring his body from battles he’d won before that fateful day. 

Once he’d died the first time, injuries were a thing of the past. No matter what people did to him, everything healed. It always healed. He didn’t know why. He didn’t know how to control it, how to stop it. 

He didn’t know how to die. 

And he didn’t age. He was praised as a God whenever he rose from battle. People called him a son of Hades, worshipped him like he was worthy of honour, built shrines and temples in his name, sacrificed to him for good luck. 

He was just a man. He was _just a man_. 

He didn’t know why he couldn’t die, but he knew he wasn’t a God. He knew he wasn’t anyone worth worshipping, and he knew without a shadow of a doubt that he was going to live out this strange life of his forever—and alone. 

He’d made friends at first. The first few years, he’d made friends. He didn’t like being worshipped, he didn’t like being thought of as a God, but sometimes he didn’t mind it so much. It allowed him funds and access to people and things he previously wouldn’t have. But as time passed, and he saw countless around him die, it became more difficult.

This wasn’t what he wanted. He didn’t _want_ to live forever. He didn’t _want_ to watch those around him die. He wanted peace, he wanted things to end.

All things had to come to an end. It was the natural order of things. People died, it was an inevitability. _People died_.

But not him. Never him. He lived, and lived, and lived. He saw the rise and fall of empires. He fought in countless wars, and every time he fell, he always stood back up. After the first fifty years, he stopped making alliances. He was still thought of as a God, but as timed passed, stories of him began to shift into that of myth, much like everything else.

He showed up for battles when the cause was just, he defended those who could not defend themselves. He came and went, and spoke to no one. He died and came back to life. Over and over the cycle went. 

He was alone. He would always be alone. He despised this life. It was a curse, one he didn’t understand, one he wanted to undo. He’d sacrificed and prayed and cried and begged, but the Gods didn’t listen. They didn’t care.

The Gods weren’t real is what he realized. After the first hundred years of asking for his suffering, his loneliness, everything to just _end_ , he realized that the Gods couldn’t be real, because even they were not so cruel. 

And so it went. For years. For hundreds of years. _Hundreds_ of years. He died on the battlefield, and he woke up. When he wasn’t fighting, he wandered the lands. He didn’t stay in one place for too long, he didn’t want to be recognized. He didn’t want people to go back to worshipping him. The son of Hades, the undead, the mighty warrior that no blade could fell. 

He saw the rise of the Romans, the changes that it brought with it. And one day, while he was sleeping on the hard ground of an unplowed field in 17 BCE, the sun bright above him and the world quiet, he dreamt of a man. 

He often dreamt of men—and women—when he was lonely. Which happened more frequently as the years passed. But this time was different. This time, the man wasn’t holding him, or comforting him, or offering friendship and kindness. This time, he watched the man die. 

Jerking awake with his head spinning and the sun too bright, he tried his best to shake off the eerie sensations creeping up his spine. He didn’t know what it was he’d seen, only that the death had been horrific. 

The man had been gorgeous. Dark chocolate skin, rippling muscles, a battle-hardened expression, short-cropped hair. He’d looked fierce, and strong, and like he understood what it was to be alone, _truly_ alone. 

When he went back to sleep that night, he dreamt of the man again. Saw him die again. He got a better look this time, saw how he’d died. He was a Gladiator, probably one of the best given what he knew about Gladiators. Which was a lot, since he had nothing but time, considering. 

For three nights in a row, he dreamt of this man. He saw him die, over and over again. But every time he died, it was different. He didn’t know why, he didn’t _understand_ why. This had never happened before. He’d never _seen_ anything this gruesome before. 

On the fourth night, he began walking in the direction of the Roman Forum, intent on going to the Colosseum to see what he was dreaming about. He recognized the structure around the fallen Gladiator, he just didn’t understand the meaning behind it. 

It took him a long time to reach the Colosseum by foot, but despite having funds for transportation, he’d never bothered obtaining a horse. He was in no hurry, he had all the time in the world. Literally. 

When the next Gladiator games commenced, he watched with the cheering crowd around him, head tilting ever so slightly at the sight of the man he’d seen in his dreams. People had gone insane at the sight of him, screaming and cheering for him. 

He didn’t understand. This man seemed formidable, but he was nothing special as far as he was concerned. As far as he could see. But he’d dreamt of him. The Gods that didn’t exist had wanted him to find this Gladiator, so he’d found him. 

The games began and he watched this man take down foe after foe. He watched the ground get stained with blood, watched the man’s form. People cheered every fallen enemy, screaming the man’s name—Sese. 

He’d surmised on his own the man was from Egypt, and Sese in Egyptian of the time meant ‘the vanquisher,’ which was a fitting name for a beast like this. He would admit to being impressed, but still didn’t know why he was there, what the purpose of his dreams was. 

And then, in the blink of an eye, someone got the upper hand and Sese died. Right there, in front of him, for the fifth time in a row. It was different than the other four times, but no less upsetting. He didn’t know why he’d come, and as he rose to leave, people still cheering around him, he saw movement in the arena while he headed out and turned. 

Sese was getting back up. The wounds on his torso had healed, skin smooth and whole, and he was _getting back up_. 

He stood there staring for so long that the entire amphitheatre around him seemed to dissolve. This man, this Gladiator, was like him. Unkillable. Someone who had died, and then woken up again. 

The Romans called Sese the son of Mars, same as the Greeks had once called him the son of Hades. He was like a God to them. He was a warrior who could not be killed, who could never be fully vanquished, who would always rise when he fell. Over and over and over again. 

He couldn’t believe it, because he’d never met anyone else like him. He’d never even _heard_ of anyone else like him. For hundreds of year, he’d been alone, convinced he was forever going to _be_ alone. And then one day, he suddenly wasn’t. 

He’d found someone else like him. That was why he’d dreamt about him. That was why he’d been led to this place, to meet this man. Because the four times he’d seen him die in his dreams, Sese had _actually_ died. All four times. He’d just come back, same as him. 

He wasn’t alone anymore. Neither of them were. Sese was fresh, he’d only just learned of this ability when he’d died four days ago, but that didn’t matter. Because he wasn’t alone anymore, and he had someone, and he _wasn’t alone_. 

It wasn’t easy getting to where Sese was, given the guards were not very accommodating. He didn’t care, he paid off the ones who took his coin and took down the ones who didn’t. Whatever he had to do in order to reach the man. Once he did, he allowed Sese to run him through, thinking him a threat. He died on his blade, and when he came back, it was still buried in his body. Not exactly a pleasant experience for him, but whatever worked. 

Sese had been scared, and horrified, and confused. Same as him. And he had no answers for his new companion, because even now, after hundreds of years, he knew no more than he had back when he’d died himself. All he knew was they were not Gods, and Sese could not continue to live like this. He would never age, he would never die. One day, they would turn on him. One day, he would no longer be someone to admire, but someone to fear. 

It took him a long time to convince Sese to join him, but as time passed, he began to see the truth. The people were less excited when he came out, because how could anyone have a good show when they always knew who the winner would be? How did someone defeat the unkillable? He couldn’t stay, it wasn’t feasible. 

And every day after the games, when he sent to see him, and Sese said no, he always promised he’d be back tomorrow. As long as he had to. Until he joined him. And one day, finally, _finally_ , he showed up, and Sese said, “I will go with you.” 

He wasn’t alone anymore. From then on, he wasn’t alone. Son of Hades. Son of Mars. 

Except they weren’t Gods. They had never been Gods, and they never would be. Because the Gods weren’t real. 

But Immortals were, and he knew that better than anyone else. 

Theodoros of Halki was real, and he’d been alive since 1274 BCE. 

And no matter what happened, or what he did, he just couldn’t _die_. 

* * *

Life with Sese improved his mental state exponentially. Having someone else at his side forever made it more bearable. Knowing no matter what that he would never be alone again saved him from insanity. And Sese was a good companion. An honest man, a good person. He never spoke of his home in Egypt, but it was clear he had been taken as a slave. This was not something he was willing to pry into, Sese’s past was his own business. 

He himself often forgot about anything related to his own family. He knew he was from Halki, he knew his name, but he had long ago forgotten his mother’s face, his sister’s laugh, his father’s voice. He could no longer recall his first love’s features, or what he’d been doing the day he’d died. It was all in the past, long ago, and irrelevant to the future ahead. 

He had Sese. Sese had him. It was all they had, so they could only move forward and forget the past. 

It was easier to live alongside a companion, and they travelled. They still fought in battles, they still died and came back. He often wondered if one day they simply wouldn’t, but he himself had died more times than he could remember, more times than he could comfortably count. Into the thousands, the high thousands. 

He always came back. 

Sese had tried once. He’d tried to see if it was possible to end it all. After three hundred years, he couldn’t live like this anymore. He’d tried to warn Sese that he’d attempted it all before, that it wasn’t possible, that he himself had been alive for a millennia. But he didn’t stop him.

Unless he tried himself, Sese wouldn’t believe him. So he let him do as he pleased, and every time Sese woke up, he was right there beside him. Sese cried sometimes. He wanted, like him, to join his family in Duat. He’d originally thought of immortality as a blessing, something bestowed upon him by the Gods. It didn’t take long for him to realize the same thing about the Gods. 

They were not real. They didn’t exist. And if they did, they cared very little for the two of them. 

It took another five-hundred years for Sese to fully believe he would truly never die. They were stuck together forever, life would never cease for them. He would never join his family in Asphodel—or whatever afterlife existed—and Sese would never join his family in Duat—or whatever afterlife existed. 

They made the most of their time. They gained funds, they travelled, they fought where they were needed. They protected people, they helped those who needed it, they gave food to the hungry and helped the poor and comforted the sick. They could do nothing more. Two men who could no die, and lived only to watch others suffer and meet an end they themselves would never experience. 

And then one night, while sailing across the ocean in the middle of a storm, he’d been awake thinking about their upcoming travels with Sese asleep beside him, and the man had jerked upright gasping for air. 

He hadn’t understood, and Sese was incomprehensible in his alarm and confusion and _fear_. It took a long time to calm him down enough to understand him. 

Sese had dreamt of a woman. Not uncommon, they both had needs, and they both alternated between dreaming of men and women. Not to say they themselves hadn’t on occasion laid together, but given their endless lives as a duo, they tried to set boundaries given they loved one another, but not in that sense. Basic human urges, nothing more. 

But Sese insisted it wasn’t that. He’d dreamt of a woman, a beautiful woman with artfully painted skin and murderous eyes, brandishing a sword before being run through herself. Of course, dreams of the people they’d seen die had come often to both of them, but Sese had insisted this time was different. 

Something had felt _different_. 

And he remembered. Lying in that field, in the middle of the day, sleeping and dreaming of a Gladiator dying. 

He didn’t know if this truly meant what he thought it did. It had been over a thousand years since he’d found Sese, but then... it has been almost a thousand years _before_ he’d found Sese, too. Was it impossible to imagine there was another like them? Someone else in the world who could die over and over, but the afterlife wouldn’t take? 

They hadn’t planned on going to Asia, but once their boat docked, they found passage there. It was difficult, and every night while they slept, they saw the woman, over and over again. Her first death had been her own, her true death. Every one after was her people afraid. It took them a long time to determine where she was. Asia wasn’t a small land mass, but they narrowed things down based on what they saw in their dreams and the people they spoke to.

It took them two months to reach a small village in Japan, where a beautiful young woman was living in hiding, afraid and alone, trying desperately to escape those pursuing her and accusing her of dark magic. 

She wouldn’t listen to them. She screamed at them in Japanese, a language that had been difficult to learn given neither men were welcome in the country—they were gaijin, foreigners, and had no place there. The only option was to prove to her that they understood, and they only wanted to help.

So, Sese killed him. He didn’t remember how, just that he’d been kind enough to ensure it didn’t hurt too much. When he’d come back, the woman was no longer screaming. Now she was crying. Like him, she’d been alone. Not for a millennia, but his first few hundred years had been years of worship and people thinking him a God. She’d been chased out of her home and was in hiding from people she considered family. She was an onna-bugeisha, a female samurai, a fierce warrior, just as Sese had said. 

She no longer looked to be a fierce warrior. She was broken, and lost, and confused, and scared. All feelings both he and Sese could understand. 

This was different from before. He knew the Roman language Sese had spoken when they’d met, having travelled and learned it over the hundreds of years during the Roman Empire’s rise. He and Sese had learned many languages in the millennia they’d been together. Japanese was different, they were not welcome in Japan, and coming this far had been a challenge. 

And she was a woman. She was like them in every way, but completely different at the same time. She didn’t trust them, not because they were men, but because they were foreigners. Like with Sese, he knew it would take time. He knew they would have to earn her trust. 

They stayed. They were attacked, as was she, but every time they died, they came back. They tried to help her, she refused their help, so they followed at a distance whenever she passed through the villages. 

She was shunned, and hated, and attacked. Over and over. 

Eventually, she came to the same conclusion as Sese. This was not a life one could live alone. This was not something she could overcome. She couldn’t die, no matter how hard she tried. No matter how many times she committed seppuku. She couldn’t die. 

One day, as he and Sese followed her into yet another village, she appeared where they were staying with saké, and she drank herself unconscious. 

And that was how in 1152 CE, Akira Kimura joined them in their eternal lives of being unkillable. 

Then they were three, and he realized—if there were three of them, that meant as time passed, there would be more. They would continue to find these people, the unkillable, those who died and returned from the afterlife. As if whatever afterlife existed just didn’t want them. It would spit them back out into the world.

He was sure some would think this a blessing, but to them, it was a curse. To someone like him, who’d been alive since 1274 BCE, this was nothing more than eternal torture. To someone like Sese, who’d grown up a slave, and died in a Gladiator arena, this was suffering beyond anything else he’d ever imagined. And to someone like Akira, who’d expected to die with honour, and was now being chased by the people who meant the most to her, this was a punishment she did not deserve. 

It was difficult. For many years, it was difficult. Akira was a quick study, and while she hadn’t originally been very happy about her new foreigner friends, she recognized they were in this together. It only took a few weeks for her hostility levels to lessen, and as time passed and they began to learn each other’s languages, it made it easier on all three of them. 

They were together, they would continue to do what they’d always done, and that was really all they could do. Their lives would never end, so they could at least help those who _would_ see such an end. 

They met another member of their Supernatural family during the Black Death in Ireland in 1349. They’d gone to Europe in an attempt to help save as many as they could. They knew they’d caught it themselves, multiple times, but just as their wounds healed when they were injured, the disease died within them before it could kill them. He often wondered if such a disease might be their end, if only their bodies didn’t fight it off before it managed to kill them. 

They couldn’t save people, but they could offer comfort. They went to the houses of the sick and dying. They fed them, they spoke to them, they did their best to provide some sense of peace for them. It never got easier, seeing people die. Seeing them able to do what the three of them could not. 

It never got easier, but they continued to do it anyway. 

And then they went to sleep one night, and they all dreamt of the same man. His death was far less violent than either Sese’s or Akira’s. He breathed harshly as he slept, covered in sweat, his chest rising and falling. Then, it just stopped. 

And then it started rising and falling again. 

Just as he’d thought, if there were three of them, there had to be more. He didn’t know why this one came so soon after Akira, less than two hundred years apart, but he wasn’t going to complain. He hated that there was another, because nobody deserved to live this life, this eternal passage of time, but at least anyone new wasn’t alone.

At least for everyone after him, they knew they weren’t alone. 

They were in Spain at the time of the dream. It took them a long time to reach England, and even longer to pinpoint where their newest family member was. Travelling freely during such times was difficult, but they always managed. They did their best to comfort those along the way, but their priority was finding the man. 

Boy, more like. He wasn’t very old, which made his death a true tragedy. He himself may have only been twenty-five when he died, but that had been a suitably long life for someone in his lifetime. Most died in their thirties, so he’d basically lived more than half his life before he’d died the first time. Sese was twenty-two in a time where the same age of death of thirty was common, so he too had lived a fairly long time. Akira was twenty-seven, but those in her profession didn’t last long, either. 

This newest one looked like a veritable child. If he was over twenty, he would be amazed. 

The biggest problem at this point was _finding_ him. Unlike with Sese, who’d died over and over again, and Akira, who’d been murdered and done seppuku multiple times, this new one had died from the Black Death, and come back. There was no constant death for him that they could use to locate him, so they only had an image of what he looked like from their dreams, and the general whereabouts from what they could see and hear around him at the time. 

They eventually determined he was in Ireland after many weeks of searching, but by the time they got there, they didn’t know if he was even still _there_. Until he died again, they wouldn’t see him in their dreams. They only ever saw those they didn’t know in their dreams until they met. Once they met, the dreams stopped. 

In the end, it was him who found them. They searched for him for months while the plague continued to slice through Europe. People were scared and angry and every now and then, he, Sese and Akira would get killed. Their newest friend seemed to realize that these people he kept seeing in his dreams were people he needed to find. 

He didn’t know why, he had no idea he’d died and come back. It wasn’t as immediately evident for someone dying of the plague as it was someone who’d been run through with a sword. But eventually, Isaiah O’Lachey found them on his own, and then they were four. 

Isaiah was a strange addition to their team. He was a labourer in life, not very knowledgeable in any sense when it came to weaponry, strategy or battle, and he was the youngest not only in new death, but in age at twenty. It had been difficult for the first year with him. He was argumentative, and rude, and disliked any form of authority. His father had not been a particularly kind man, and this had made Isaiah very hateful of most men older than him. 

It took a while, but as he kept reminding their newest addition, they had the rest of eternity to get along, so Isaiah was going to have to get used to it. And he did, eventually. Akira taught him how to use a sword, Sese taught him strategy, and he taught him weaponry. It was what they did, what they always did. They didn’t like killing, but they stepped in where they were needed, and while Isaiah couldn’t die, it wasn’t like getting killed was particularly fun. 

Even if they came back, they still felt pain, and sometimes he honestly believed that he felt pain in every single place he’d ever died every time he woke up. It was not a pleasant feeling, but he kept thinking maybe one day, _one day_ , he just wouldn’t wake up again. Maybe finally, this time, he could be at peace.

It never happened. No matter what, it never happened. He always woke up.

Always. 

Isaiah improved, at any rate. Which was expected, considering he’d had over three-hundred years with them before he finally, and very excitedly, was no longer their newest member.

Or their youngest.

That honour went to a noblewoman in France during the French Revolution. Lucky for her, they happened to be _in_ France at the time specifically _because_ of the revolution, and when they’d gone to sleep one night in 1791, they’d all woken with a start at the image of a gorgeous blonde woman being dragged out of her home. 

He already knew based on how she’d died that the men who’d taken her would suffer for it. He would have seen to it personally, though Sese had woken up incensed at what he’d seen and more than likely would have taken things into his own hands immediately with the way he was rearing to go if he hadn’t been reminded that the priority was finding _her_. He had no problems letting Sese take out his anger on the people who’d done this, but they needed to find her and help her before going after the people who’d done it. 

After all, they all wanted to make sure the men suffered before they died, and they couldn’t rush through that while thinking about finding her. She was the priority, the men could come after. 

It was while they were getting ready to head out that Isaiah had very loudly and cheerfully proclaimed he was no longer the baby of the group. Akira had killed him for being insensitive. Sese had killed him for being an asshole. This was quite common with Isaiah. 

After everyone was done killing each other—for people who were literally hundreds of years old, they still acted like children—they finally headed out to find their fifth and last family member to date. 

She died an additional two times before they found her. It may have been more, but after her third death, Sese had screamed at them that they needed to get to her _now_. He’d never seen Sese like this before, not even when they’d been looking for Akira, so he knew something here was different. 

They forewent sleep for days searching for her, and eventually they split up because Sese was getting more agitated by the day. Every death the girl faced was not one any of them were happy about. Sure, dying in general was unpleasant, but every death she’d had so far had been accompanied with—unfavourable actions from the men murdering her. 

They agreed on a meeting place and a date, and then Akira and Isaiah went one way, and he and Sese went another. They didn’t like splitting up, they worried about never finding one another again. In addition, foreigners were unwelcome in most places in the world, and while he and Isaiah tended to be fine, Sese and Akira were not. It was why the two of them never split up together, because he would _not_ lose them by having them locked away in some dungeon somewhere for the rest of time. 

Eventually, their fifth and final member was located. She was sitting on the side of the road, wearing a dirty, torn dress, her hair a veritable mess, and tears constantly flowing down her face. When they approached her, she flinched away from them, but Sese bent down and spoke with such a soft, kind voice that he was positive she was immediately enamoured with him. 

His French was perfect—made sense after hundreds of years of practice—and he was probably the kindest person she’d encountered since the beginning of the revolution. 

When men approached them, not only because of the beautiful girl, but also the dark-skinned man bent in front of her, he stepped between them. A fight broke out, as it often did, and while he managed to kill four of them, one of them got him before he could defend himself properly. 

He woke up with the girl staring at him with wide eyes and Sese wiping blood off his blade, having dealt with the remaining attacker. That was when she realized they were like her. Or rather, she was like them. 

And so, in 1791, the last of their little family, nineteen year old Ayméric Reinaux, joined their ranks. 

Sese helped her murder every last motherfucker who touched her before she died her first three times. 

It didn’t take long for him to recognize that they were meant to be. The universe had found someone for Sese. He was jealous, but also glad that they wouldn’t all _always_ be alone in every sense of the word.

He had his new family. After a millennia alone, he’d found Sese. And after another millennia with only him, their family had grown to five. 

There were still days where he wished he could die. Where he wished he could find peace, leave this world of pain and suffering and constant _war_ behind him. But if he couldn’t, if he never did, at least he had them. 

At least he had them. 

* * *

Derek Hale drummed his fingers on the table, his other fist pressed against his cheek while he watched the events unfolding on the television above the bar. He wanted to shake his head at the absurdity of it all, but after three millennia on this planet, men no longer surprised him in the slightest. 

The war on Iraq was just another excuse for men to fight. He didn’t understand why people were so eager to die, why they went to war specifically for the sole purpose of dying. Didn’t they realize that would be the only outcome? The rich would get richer, the poor would get poorer, and the death toll would include no one who honestly deserved to die. 

Civilians and innocents tended to be the ones directly affected by war, and he wished men would stop being so interested in ending lives. 

Or at least focus on those who actually _wanted_ it to end. Like him. He was so tired. He honestly didn’t know how much longer he could handle being alive when nothing ever changed and he saw absolutely no purpose in anything that he did. For every person he saved, five more died. What even was the point anymore? 

He didn’t react when someone set a bottle of beer down in front of him, Vernon Boyd taking the free seat across from him. He kept his eyes on the screen until his companion turned to see what he was watching, then faced him once more, arching an eyebrow. 

“We going?” he asked. 

“Why bother?” Derek watched the troops on the screen, knowing it was a high possibility more than half of them wouldn’t return. He hated that he knew the devastation of war and yet nobody ever listened when he tried to talk sense into them. 

If he weren’t immortal, and desperately hiding this fact, he’d have worked to join the government, make a real difference. As it was, he would be outed as an unkillable human being on _top_ of not actually being American. 

In his defence, the United States of America didn’t exist when he was born, so he could be forgiven. 

And sure, he had a fake birth certificate proclaiming his newest name of Derek Hale from New York, but it was almost a hundred years old at this point. Actually, what year was it? 

“What’s today?” 

“August seventh,” Boyd answered, sipping at his beer while people watching. 

“What year?” 

Boyd tilted his head slightly, eyes shifted to the side in thought. “2003, I think.” 

Definitely over a hundred years old. 

“We should talk to Stilinski. See if he can help us get some new documents.” 

Boyd just hummed his agreement, continuing to sip at his beer, the two of them sitting in silence. They needed moments like this sometimes, the two of them. Their three companions were loud and energetic most of the time, but the two of them were the oldest and sometimes they needed time to just sit and shut down. 

Derek liked where they were, though he knew they’d have to move along soon. The age of technology had screwed them over royally, and it looked to only be getting worse and worse for them. The internet, CCTV, cell phones, the works. Some cell phones even had cameras on them now—not all, since this was a relatively new thing the previous year, but enough. Every time they lingered anywhere for too long, they risked being exposed.

On top of that, it didn’t help that life expectancy had literally tripled over the years. And with stories of monsters and Vampires and whatnot popular among the younger crowds, it was only a matter of time before they were mistaken for creatures of darkness and hauled away for experiments. 

Derek was very anti-experiments. It didn’t sound like a good time to him. Someone who couldn’t die being stuck in a cage forever? That sounded worse than what he was already living.

The two of them sat there until their beers were finished, then Boyd dropped some money on the table, Derek setting his bottle overtop, and they stood to head out and back to one of their many houses. 

Honestly, they were probably the richest people in the world, what with all the money they’d earned over the years. It was hard to keep bank accounts open, so they tended to have it all stashed away wherever they could, and owned multiple properties worldwide. A few of their older haunts had been torn down by large corporations bulldozing areas for new developments, but that was of little importance to them. 

They made more money than they knew what to do with most of the time, and after literal millennia of work, it wasn’t like they were ever strapped for cash. 

Exiting the pub together, the two walked along the sidewalk, passing numerous people bustling about during the early hours of the evening. A few women turned to check them out, but Derek ignored them, absolutely uninterested. He hadn’t had a sex drive for years now, and he figured it was because life was meaningless. 

The only thing that made life worthwhile was the ending of it, but when one could do anything they wanted for all eternity, it made everything seem a little boring. Derek knew he was in a bit of a funk right now, it happened every couple hundred years. He just needed something exciting to bounce back and he’d be okay.

Maybe. Probably. 

He honestly had no idea, but he supposed he’d find out in a few years. 

“What’s the plan for the next move?” Boyd asked, hands in his pockets while they walked slowly, not in any rush. Never in any rush. 

“Maybe up the coast. Florida?” 

Boyd made a face and Derek shrugged. They always discussed it as a group anyway, and it wasn’t like they couldn’t just pick up and head out if they didn’t like where they landed. They were on jobs more often than not, so where they stayed wasn’t important. 

Sometimes they split up into two smaller groups, just because time apart was good every now and then, but they always migrated back together before long. It was hard being away from each other knowing everyone else around them were people they could never get close to. 

The two of them chatted about their next job while they walked, some kind of military contract they were still debating given they worried about exposure. The last thing they needed was the American military finding out about what they were. It would be hard for anyone to coerce them into doing their bidding—what were they gonna do, kill them or their loved ones?—but they still didn’t want to risk it. 

Though they _did_ like being informed, and working for the military proved to be very beneficial in that regard. They often got a lot of details on the goings on overall. America truly was one of the most impressive powerhouses of the world. Derek had lived through many rises and falls of empires, but America was the most formidable to date. Technology certainly helped, but no one was a match for their military prowess. 

They’d moved on to weapons and their inventory by the time they reached their home, walking up the driveway slowly and entering their house. Boyd shut it behind them, locking the door while Derek continued on into the kitchen. 

Isaac Lahey was standing at the stove, mixing curry that smelled absolutely divine. Derek moved up behind him to see what it was and couldn’t help a small smile teasing his lips. 

“Butter Chicken?” 

“Garam Masala,” he corrected, still stirring. “Dough for the naan is still rising, so dinner’s not for another hour at least.” 

Derek didn’t mind, he wasn’t starving or anything, and he needed to make a call anyway. He grabbed a pop from the fridge, then turned to hunt down his other two housemates. Boyd had predictably gone straight to the love of his life, Erica Reyes. She was browsing clothes on the internet, along with slang and noteworthy news. She’d taken to the internet like she was born in this era, which should’ve made sense considering she was the youngest of them, but also didn’t since electricity didn’t even exist when she’d died. 

“I think you’d look good in this,” Erica said when she saw him in the doorway, turning the computer to show off a hideous pink turtleneck. He gave her an unimpressed look, but she just affected an innocent expression and added it to her cart. 

Derek rolled his eyes and turned his back on her, uncapping his Coke and taking a sip while heading upstairs. The walls were bare, and he often thought they should buy some paintings or new wallpaper or something, just to make the places feel more... homey. 

Not that anywhere felt homey, nor would it ever, but the illusion every now and then would be nice. Then again, more things in the house meant more for people to steal if they broke in during one of their long, extended time away. He wasn’t particularly fond of this house, or this town though. Maybe they should think of selling this place and buy another elsewhere. 

He liked Thailand, but travelling abroad was so difficult in this day and age. Things were easier to track, though thankfully they had a good contact for that. 

Reaching the second floor, he moved to the only door that was closed and knocked. When he heard nothing, he pushed it open and found the last of them sitting cross-legged in a computer chair, her back to the door and noise cancelling headphones blasting angry music into her ears. 

He moved forward to grab her shoulder, but before he made contact, a sword materialized as if out of nowhere, angled upwards and back, point pressed under his chin. He felt blood well up, the tip having broken skin, and just sighed, unimpressed. 

Kira Yukimura reached up with her free hand, back still to him, and pulled her headphones off, allowing the loud music to be heard clearly through the speakers now that they weren’t pressed against her ears. 

“I don’t like it when you sneak up on me.” 

“I don’t like it when you greet me with a sword, so we’re both having a bad day.” He reached up with one hand, using two fingers to slowly guide the sword away. It cut along his chin as it went, but the wound healed instantly, leaving nothing but a smear of blood behind to even suggest he’d been injured. 

He moved around her to sit in the free chair beside the desk, Kira re-sheathing her sword and turning her music off, eyes still on the screen. He didn’t call her out on how he wouldn’t be _sneaking_ if she didn’t listen to loud music all the time. Kira was going through one of her own down phases, same as Derek. 

They tended to coincide, like she could sense his bad moods about their lot in life and followed suit. 

“They’re poking around again,” Kira informed him, reaching for a piece of paper out of the printer on her other side and handing it to him, eyes never once leaving the screen. 

If Erica had taken to technology like she was born in this era, Kira had taken to it like she’d _created_ it. She was their eyes and ears, and while Derek himself wasn’t _terrible_ at using a computer, he wasn’t particularly fond of it, either. He was more a boots-on-the-ground kind of guy, which made sense considering all his time doing just that. 

He took the page she was holding out to him and scowled at what he was reading. They’d noticed over the past two decades that a new pharmaceutical company had slowly but surely been rising in the ranks using new and improved medicine that was thought to be of their own design. As with any new medicine open to the public, the secret behind what it was and how it was created was kept very quiet, but the team had begun to notice various people around them. 

Whenever they went on a job in certain places, they saw people almost... watching them. Derek had started to suspect that perhaps these people knew who they were, _what_ they were, and that the new medicine that seemed to be doing such a good job in curing various illnesses was linked back to them somehow.

It wasn’t like they didn’t leave behind plenty of blood samples whenever they did a job. Dying kind of came with the territory. 

SilverCorp had been poking around, and every time they spoke to the press, they always had reasons why they couldn’t mass produce, and it always coincided with stints where Derek and his team evaded their goons. It was a concern, because this was exactly what the worry was overall. 

People using them as lab rats. People like _this_ , who were only interested in money, using them as a means to allow the rich to live longer, healthier lives, while the poor continued to suffer and die. They were not Gods, and they wouldn’t allow others to use them to _create_ Gods. 

“We need new documents anyway,” Derek said. “My birth certificate is outdated, which means they all are.” 

“Calling Stilinski?” she asked, still typing away, eyes moving back and forth rapidly while she continued to investigate SilverCorp. 

Derek grunted in confirmation, setting the page aside. 

“We can afford to keep these names a while longer. They don’t know who we are, just what we look like.” Kira’s lips turned down slightly. “We should split up again. Just for a little while. Two years.” 

It was sad that ‘two years’ was ‘a little while’ to them, but it was the truth. Two years apart was nothing to people like them. Still, he didn’t like spending any time apart from them. If something happened or went wrong, it would be difficult to find each other again. 

“I’ll think about it,” he said, knowing she’d follow his lead. He’d never led them astray before, and he wasn’t about to start now. “I’ll see what Stilinski can tell us.” 

She hummed in agreement and he stood. Her music was blaring again before he’d exited the room, shutting the door behind himself. Heading to his bedroom, he went to his dresser and pulled it open, grabbing his burner phone before heading to his bed so he could sit down. He pulled a small black notebook from his pocket and flipped it open, turning pages until he got to the one he wanted that showed the most recent phone number. 

Putting it into the burner, he brought the phone to his ear, listening to the line click before it began to ring. It rang three times before someone answered. 

_“Hello?”_

Derek jerked slightly, startled, and looked down at the number. “Uh, hi. Is this—I’m looking for Noah.”

_“Who?”_

“Noah? Uh—sorry, is your dad home?” 

_“At work.”_ The kid sounded so damn proud to be able to notify Derek of this that it was kind of adorable. 

“Oh, I see. Is your dad Noah Stilinski?” 

_“No, daddy’s name is John. That’s what mommy always calls him.”_

Derek wracked his brain on if he’d fucked up the name somehow, but was coming up blank. Flipping back a few pages in his notebook, he was glad he knew himself well enough to write things down because the name written was ‘Noah John Stilinski,’ which meant it likely _was_ Noah, but he went by John. They weren’t exactly close, and Derek tended to call him Stilinski whenever they spoke, so he hadn’t ever really clued in that perhaps Stilinski didn’t use his first name. 

“That’s really helpful, thank you.” He didn’t know how to talk to kids, and this one sounded like he was young. Old enough to answer the phone, but young enough that he was hard to understand. Maybe four? “And who are you? What’s your name?” 

_“Mischief.”_

“Mischief, huh? Is that who you are, or what you cause?” 

_“It’s my name!”_ Now he sounded offended. Definitely young, he was banking on four. 

“Okay,” he said instead. “It’s nice to meet you, Mischief. My name is Derek. Do you know when your dad is coming home?” 

_“No.”_

“How helpful,” he informed him, sighing and rubbing at his eyes. He knew he was getting impatient with a literal child, but it wasn’t often he called Stilinski and he didn’t like calling too many times in a row. Just in case. “Is your mom around?” 

That question was met with silence that went on for far too long. Derek frowned, and asked instead, “Are you home alone?”

Stilinski didn’t strike him as the kind of person to leave his kid home alone—not that Derek had _known_ he had a kid, but still.

When this was also answered with silence, Derek sighed. “Is there an adult there I can speak to?” 

Silence, and then words were screamed _right_ in his ear. _“Miss Melissa!”_

Derek could hear a woman on the other end, her voice getting louder as she neared. She said something kind to the kid, and then her voice came down the line. 

_“Hello?”_

“Hi, sorry to bother you, I’m looking for John?”

_“He’s at work right now, can I take a message? Did you need him to call you back?”_

“Do you know when he’ll be back?”

_“Sorry, I don’t. Claudia should be home in about an hour, if you’d like to call back then?”_

“Thank you, I’ll try him again tomorrow.”

_“All right. Did you want to leave a message so he knows you called?”_

“No need, I’ll call again. Thank you.” 

When she wished him a good night, he hung up, and then sat staring at the phone for a long while. Boyd ended up coming up to check on him, cocking an eyebrow at him from the doorway when he found him sitting motionless on the bed. 

“Everything okay?” 

“Stilinski has a kid.” 

Boyd was silent for a long while. “He’s married?” 

“I think so. Kid said his mom called his dad ‘John.’” How long had it been since they’d last spoken to him? Time functioned differently for them, he hadn’t really given it much thought. But if Stilinski had a kid who was at _least_ four years old, it had been a _while_ since he’d called. 

“Isaac says dinner’s ready. Better get down there before Erica eats it all.” 

“Yeah.” Derek kept staring at the phone. He should probably make more of an effort to keep in touch with Stilinski. He valued the relationship he had with this family a lot, and he felt—a bit out of sorts having him married with a kid and not even knowing about it. 

At least when his father and grandfather had had their kids, they’d known about it. But Mischief—or _whatever_ his name was—was literally old enough to answer the phone, albeit poorly, and Derek hadn’t even known he existed. 

Boyd stood waiting for him so he shook the feeling off and stood, putting the burner back in his dresser and shoving his little book into his pocket. Honestly, he was lucky the Stilinskis all knew his calls were sporadic and kept their numbers for so long, otherwise he didn’t know _how_ he’d find them.

Well, with the internet now, but that was still kind of a new thing for him. Kira could do it, probably, so at least he had that. 

Still, he hoped he could clear things up with Stilinski tomorrow. And they needed to get planning on their new job if they were actually going to take it. 

* * *

Derek had met Harrison Stilinski during the second world war. As always during conflicts, he and the others had gone to help fight, trying to save as many lives as they could instead of taking them. He’d already been going by the name ‘Derek’ by then, and had been helping the Allied forces when a medic had almost gotten shot by a stray bullet. Derek had saved him by taking it himself, dying from the shot to the head. 

It had been a stupid thing to do, they didn’t usually let themselves be seen _quite_ so obviously, but the man had been helping an unconscious wounded soldier, they weren’t on the front lines, and some idiot had discharged in a place people were supposed to be safe. He wasn’t going to let the man die. 

Of course when he’d woken up again, it was to that same medic leaning over him, looking stunned and confused. And when someone else came around to check on Derek, the man had immediately wiped the blood off his forehead and proclaimed that the bullet had missed them both and he’d tripped over himself and fallen over. 

Derek hadn’t had time to ask him why he’d lied for him, because the medics were busy enough as it was and he was ushered away to let them work. But he saw the man’s eyes following him until he was out of sight. 

He didn’t tell the others about it, not at first. There was no need to worry them about his potential exposure, and it wouldn’t be the first time. People found out about them sometimes, and they were always dealt with if they became a problem. 

Unfortunately, they _always_ became a problem, but for some reason, this one felt different. Derek didn’t know why, but the fact that he’d _immediately_ lied and protected him made him feel like there was a reason for it. He just didn’t know what that reason _was_.

He tried not to dwell on it as much as possible, and he and the others continued to work on protecting as many people as they could. No different from the men who came before, or those who came after, war always benefited the rich, and far too many young men died. No matter how many they saved, more of them fell. 

Derek didn’t see the medic again for almost a year, and when he did, it was while he was carrying a wounded soldier, screaming in agony after having stepped on a mine, into the medic’s tent. The man had started at seeing Derek, but hadn’t stopped to speak to him, instead getting to work on tending to the wounded soldier. Derek hastily retreated, not wanting to give him any reason to remember the man who’d been shot in the head and then stood back up moments later. 

By the end of the long, depressing day, Derek had been sitting on the ground by one of the random tents, staring up at the sky and wishing men would stop waging war on one another when someone fell down beside him. 

He thought at first it was Boyd, but when the man spoke, he realized it was the medic. 

“Didn’t think I’d ever see you again.” 

Derek’s head whipped in the man’s direction, and he saw him smiling at him before holding out a hand. 

“Harrison Stilinski.” 

Hesitating for only a moment, Derek shook it. “Derek Hale.” 

“Thank you. I never got the chance to say it, but I know what you did. I don’t know _how_ , but—thank you.” 

Derek nodded awkwardly, waiting for the catch, for the threat, for the demand that he do more, be more, _protect_ more. 

Instead, Harrison Stilinski just sat with him, and spoke about his plans after the war was over. He had a son, he’d told him. A little guy five years of age. He was looking forward to the war ending so he could go back home and spend time with him. He missed his son, and his wife. He missed life before the war. 

He didn’t ask Derek anything about himself, not once. He didn’t pry, he didn’t comment on how _interesting_ it was that Derek hadn’t died, and he didn’t imply he was threatening or blackmailing him. They just sat and had a nice conversation, and then Harrison Stilinski had gone back to work, even though he should’ve been resting. 

Derek saw him again a few times up until the war ended. Every encounter was a good one, and he found, despite not wanting to grow attached, that he _liked_ this man. He was kind, and honest, and he truly didn’t seem to want anything from him. 

When the war was over and they were heading home, Derek made sure he and his were on the same ride back to the United States, and he spent time with Harrison Stilinski. 

As it turned out, he’d met Derek before. When he was a child, a man had come in to rob the bank he and his mother were at, and Derek and a gorgeous blonde woman had been there at the same time. The two of them had taken out the robbers, and nobody had been hurt, even though Harrison _knew_ he’d seen both Derek _and_ his companion get shot. 

When he’d seen him at the camp, at first he’d thought perhaps it was someone else, a brother, a son, someone who _looked_ like him because he hadn’t aged a day since then. But then the bullet had come out of Derek’s head, had been _forced_ out by his body, and he’d opened his eyes.

And Harrison knew this was the same man. The man who had saved him not once, but twice. He didn’t know who Derek was, _what_ he was, but he knew he was a good person, and he promised if Derek ever needed anything, he would be there for him. 

Years passed, and Derek kept in touch with him, writing his various addresses and numbers down in his little notebook. When Harrison died of a heart disease when his son was in his twenties, Derek and the others went to his funeral. There, they met Elias, who approached them and said he knew who they were, _what_ they were. He wanted to honour his father’s legacy, protect and help them the same way they’d protected his father. 

So the partnership continued, and eventually Elias had his own son. And when he began to show signs of early onset Alzheimer, the next time Derek called, it was Noah he spoke to. 

Another Stilinski, who knew about the Immortals, and wanted to help them as best he could. Keep them safe, find them places to stay, get them papers. He’d started working for the local sheriff’s department a year or so back, but he knew a lot of people in high places who owed him a lot of favours. He wanted to help, same as his father and grandfather before him. 

Every time Derek called a Stilinski household, he confirmed their numbers, if there would be any upcoming changes, or if there was another number he should be aware of, and he wrote it all down in his little book. He wrote down their names and their addresses. This was a family who had been good to them, a family who, despite knowing who they were, what they were, had offered them friendship. It was something new, and different, but exciting. 

They didn’t have friends, not really. It was hard, being who they were, how careful they had to be. But the Stilinski men had always been there for them. They’d always extended a hand in friendship, and this was a relationship none of them wanted to lose. 

And now Noah had his own son, and Derek knew that when his father could no longer be the friend he was to them, when it was his turn to pass the reins, his son ‘Mischief’ would be the next to take hold. 

Derek felt like he needed to be more on top of the passage of time. It wasn’t right he hadn’t even known Noah had a son. It wasn’t right he didn’t know Noah went by ‘John.’ He called all of them ‘Stilinski’ but given their histories together, he figured he should try harder.

They should all try harder. They should make an effort to call, at least once a year. They needed to make sure they didn’t lose this relationship. 

It was the only one they had outside each other, and every small shred of humanity they could grasp was of utmost importance to them. 

* * *

_“You notice?”_ Boyd asked quietly, though why he was being quiet when he was speaking a language no one knew as well as they did, Derek had no idea. 

He tilted his head slightly, one arm wrapped around Kira’s shoulders while they waited in the security line. They didn’t like flying, it was one of the things they tried to avoid as much as possible, but it was hard getting from the United States to Europe any other way these days. Boats existed, but unless they went on a cruise or a freighter, their options were limited. 

And boats took too long when they had jobs, since their windows of opportunity were small. 

Shifting his gaze to the side, he noticed two men pretending to read the paper over by a column. They were very clearly _not_ reading the paper. They were watching them. 

_“I noticed,”_ Derek replied in Latin. _“They’re getting bolder. We might actually have to intervene.”_

“In a language we can all understand?” Isaac muttered from in front of them. They were trying to pretend not to know one another, and had actually put space between themselves while standing in the line-up, but when they’re been split off by the security people, they’d ended up back in the same line. 

So much for trying to split up a little bit. At least they had different seats on the plane, though Derek and Kira always pretended to be a couple. Boyd and Erica _were_ a couple, so they tended to stick together. Isaac always had to sit out by himself. He and Kira would kill one another if they spent too much time together, and unfortunately, that was literal. 

“Should’ve brushed up on your Latin,” Kira said. 

Honestly, she’d learned it out of necessity, since it was what Boyd and Derek had been using most frequently when they’d met her. They’d learned Japanese from her, she’d learned Latin from them. Derek knew so many languages that sometimes he mixed them up, but it was always good to know them all. The others knew just as many, but he, Boyd and Kira all spoke Latin.

Derek was the only one fully fluent in ancient Greek, but he forgave the others for not being well-versed in that language, considering. Boyd was _okay_ at it, but not great. 

_“What should we do?”_ Boyd asked in Latin, ignoring the spat between Isaac and Kira. 

_“When we go through, let’s see what they do. If I need to intervene, I will.”_

Boyd nodded once, shifting back and away from him so that they weren’t quite so close. Derek pulled his baseball cap down a bit further on his forehead when the group of girls in front of them had a camera out and were taking pictures. Isaac had turned away, as if looking at something, and Kira had shifted to hide her face in Derek’s chest. Boyd and Erica were, thankfully, hidden behind them and thus out of frame. 

Technology was becoming a problem. Harder to hide in plain sight when everything was available everywhere. 

They made it through security relatively quickly, Derek always uncomfortable when he had to walk through the metal detector. They never brought weapons with them on jobs, they had contacts and houses everywhere in the world, but we’d grown up with a sword at his side and whenever he didn’t have it, he felt unsafe. 

Nevermind that he couldn’t die, he supposed it was just habit. A comfort, almost, having something he was so used to beside him. 

They wandered through the large airport, looking around at nothing in particular. Derek was keeping an eye on people who were staring at them for a _bit_ too long. Sometimes, it was hard to know if it was about _them_ or racism. After all, Boyd and Erica were still frowned upon, and Derek and Kira—while not together—always pretended to be on trips like this. Usually the key was Isaac. 

Derek was good at being able to distinguish between people checking Isaac out because he was ‘pretty,’ or checking him out because he was _interesting_. So as they walked, Isaac was still ahead of them a few feet, keeping his distance so they weren’t noticed as being one group. Derek’s eyes shifted beneath the brim of his cap, and while the men from outside hadn’t followed them, he noticed a couple watching Isaac intently as he passed. As soon as Derek and Kira crossed their path, their gazes dropped, but rose again before they’d pulled passed them. 

Leaning closer to Kira in the guise of kissing her, Derek pressed his lips to her ear. _“Stay with the others. If I don’t make the flight, we’ll meet in Seattle,”_ he said in Japanese. 

_“Be careful.”_

He kissed her temple, and pulled away from her, turning around to head back the way they’d come. Boyd and Erica watched him as he passed them but didn’t turn, trusting him to know what he was doing.

The couple had shifted away from the wall after the last of them had passed, but they paused and did a weird jerking motion when Derek headed back the other way. As predicted, they waited only a few seconds before following him.

He walked slowly, hands in his pockets, thoughts going a mile a minute. It was SilverCorp, of that he was certain. They’d been poking around more and more of late, just as Kira had said. Their job in Croatia felt like it should’ve been outside their overall reach, but apparently the company had long arms. 

Finding a secluded area in an airport was near impossible, but Derek located a corridor leading to a service elevator that appeared to be out of order and he went that way. When he rounded the corner at the end, bypassing the elevator, he stopped and leaned back against the wall, crossing his arms and waiting.

A few moments later, the couple rounded the corner, and both started at the sight of him. He mostly kept his head down, not needing to give them an up close and personal look at his features, but he made sure they could see his vicious smile. 

“Hello,” he said, using the thickest English accent he could manage. Anything he could do to fuck up their thoughts on him and his. “Help you?”

There was silence for a moment, then the woman laughed a little too loudly. “We must have gotten turned around.” She was definitely American, and the way she held herself suggested she was someone with money. He didn’t know if she’d volunteered to watch them, but he was starting to wonder about their job in Croatia. It seemed suspicious that they were called all the way out here, and SilverCorp just _happened_ to have boots on the ground. 

“Must’ve,” he said, smile still unkind. “There a reason you’ve been following me?” 

“We’re not following you,” the man said immediately. 

“Hm.” Derek pushed off the wall, and felt gratified when both parties backed up a step. “What business does SilverCorp have in Croatia, I wonder?” 

Neither of them spoke for a long while, but then the woman squared her shoulders and flipped blonde curls over her left one. Definitely a higher up if she was acting like that. 

“We just wanted to speak to you. We’ve—noticed some things, over the years. You and your team seem to be very resilient.” 

“I don’t have a team. I’m work for an Actuary,” Derek informed her. “I was just on vacation in Dubrovnik with my wife. She’s a teacher, summer’s a good time for travel.” 

The woman let out a sarcastic laugh. “Please. Do we look stupid to you? You haven’t aged a day since the first time SilverCorp opened its doors.”

“Good genes,” Derek snarled. 

“I don’t think so.” 

Moving a step closer, the man stumbled back, but the woman stood her ground. He could tell she was trying to get a better look at his face, but he made sure to angle it away, bringing his lips closer to her ear. 

“If you come near me again,” he said, dropping the accent, “you won’t be walking away. Tell your boss I am not interested, and I am not very nice.” 

He waited to see if she would say anything further, but when she didn’t, he turned away and headed back the way he’d come. They didn’t follow this time, but he knew they likely weren’t going to be rid of them quite so easily. 

By the time he reached the gate, boarding had already commenced. He moved to find Kira in the lineup, sliding in beside her easily. She glanced over at him, eying him appraisingly. 

_“Not good, is it?”_ she asked in Japanese. 

Derek hated to admit it, but he said, _“Not good at all.”_

This new century was fucking killer on their secret. 

* * *

_“Hello?”_

Derek honestly had to wonder about the Stilinski household, because more often than not when he called, John wasn’t home, and Mischief was always the one who answered the phone. 

“Hi Mischief. It’s Derek. Is your dad home?”

 _“Derek!”_ he called loudly down the line, as if he thought Derek had a hearing problem. To be fair, if he’d been four in 2003 as his father had confirmed, Derek knew that he couldn’t be any older than six now as it had only been two years. 

Derek had called a few times over the past two years, keeping his promise to himself to stay in touch, and he’d been speaking to Mischief quite a bit because of it. 

He seemed to really like answering the phone, thought it was fun. 

“How are you? Been a good boy? Not causing trouble for your dad?”

_“I’m always a good boy!”_

“And your dad will confirm this?” he asked with a small smile.

_“Daddy’s at work. Mommy’s home, but you never want to talk to mommy.”_

Derek really needed to figure out John’s work schedule, but the man was all over the map. He worked for the local police, so evidently he didn’t have the ability to give Derek a heads up on his work hours. 

Still, this was important. He needed to talk to John. 

He never spoke to his wife—he thought her name was Claudia—because he didn’t want to risk her finding anything out. While Mischief answered the phone a lot, he was a kid and Derek was a popular name. Speaking to Claudia felt riskier, and he didn’t want to put her in an uncomfortable position. Or worse, a dangerous one.

He didn’t think the Stilinski family would continue to help him if he got one of them killed. 

“Do you know when he’ll be home?” 

_“Who are you talking to, sweetie?”_ a woman’s voice asked in the background.

 _“Daddy’s friend Derek!”_ Mischief announced proudly. 

_“Are you, now? Well, did you tell daddy’s friend Derek that daddy is at work?”_

_“Yup!”_ Mischief always sounded so damn proud of himself. Derek was kind of sad he’d never get to meet him. 

The only Stilinski men he’d ever met were Harrison and Elias. He would love to meet John, and Mischief—even if the kid drove him _crazy_ sometimes—but it wasn’t exactly safe right now. Hence his call. 

_“Did you tell daddy’s friend Derek that daddy will be home in an hour and he can call back then if he needs to speak to him?”_

Mischief hadn’t pulled the phone away from his mouth while speaking to who Derek assumed was his mother, but he raised his voice again as if thinking he had to scream into the phone. 

_“Daddy is home in an hour,”_ he said proudly. 

“Thank you, Mischief. I’ll call in an hour. Tell your mom thank you for me.” 

_“Kay!”_ Mischief hung up before Derek could say goodbye. 

Rolling his eyes, because children were ridiculous, Derek pulled the burner away from his phone and powered it off. He didn’t want to leave it on when he didn’t need to. Tossing it aside, he stood and walked through the house towards Kira’s room. She was sitting on her bed sharpening her katana and he leaned against the frame, crossing his arms while watching her. 

_“They aren’t going to stop coming,”_ she said in Japanese, eyes on what she was doing. 

_“Probably not,”_ he replied. 

They didn’t really have many options though. It wasn’t like they could just kill an entire company. They didn’t like killing people in general, but they definitely didn’t want to go after innocent people who just worked for SilverCorp and didn’t know any better. 

Sometimes, Derek wondered about the five of them. If they could honestly help people with what they were. But they weren’t Gods, and it wasn’t their place to _play_ God. Besides, they didn’t know what would happen to other people. Sure, SilverCorp was experimenting with drugs and medicine, but what if their blood did things to people? What if everyone became immortal at one point and then the world’s resources began to deplete?

Not to mention knowing the greed of men, Derek was positive that only the rich would be entitled to this ‘elixir of immortality’ and then it would be the five of them plus hundreds of rich assholes for all of eternity. 

While he wanted to help make the world a better place, and he wished things could be different, they couldn’t play God, and they couldn’t risk exposure. They did what they could, they helped those they could, and they kept their secret safe. 

If SilverCorp turned into a bigger problem than it already was, they’d have to deal with it, one way or another. He’d rather not have to go that route, but if he had to take out the entire top brass, well—he’d do what he had to in order to protect his family. 

He and Kira stayed silent while she continued to sharpen her sword for the entire hour it took before John would be home. Then Derek turned and headed back to his room to grab the burner and turn it back on. 

When he called, predictably, Mischief was the one who answered again. 

_“Hello?”_

“Hi Mischief, it’s Derek again. Is your dad home now?”

 _“Daddy!”_ Mischief screamed—right in Derek’s ear. _“Phone!”_

Derek was going to have to start pulling the phone away from his ear more often when he was on the phone with Mischief. He was going to go deaf one day. He hoped his abilities allowed for the healing of shattered eardrums. 

He heard a man’s voice speak fondly to Mischief before John’s voice came down the line. _“Derek. This is a surprise. You’ve been calling more often lately, everything okay?”_

He didn’t know how to tell him he felt like he needed to make more of an effort, so he didn’t. Besides, as much as he complained about Mischief, he actually really liked talking to the kid. He was kind of fun and... Derek didn’t know. Something about him was interesting. He liked him. 

“I don’t mean to be any trouble.”

 _“You’re no trouble, son,”_ John promised. Derek always found it funny that John called him ‘son.’ He was literally thousands of years older than the man, but he supposed his voice made him sound much younger. He’d died at twenty-five, after all. He was an eternal young adult. 

At least he, Boyd, Kira and Isaac were eternal young adults. Erica was an eternal teenager, she’d never gotten past nineteen, even if she was hundreds of years old now. 

“I appreciate that,” he said honestly. “I just wanted to call and check in, make sure you’re doing all right, and let you know what’s been happening on our end.” 

He listened while John gave him updates on things he’d found out on his side. Derek didn’t know how to tell him he wanted to hear more about John _personally_. He wasn’t good with people, and sometimes wished one of the others would call the man. But, he was the one who’d made the arrangement with Harrison Stilinski, so he was the one who always called. Besides, it was better this way. It meant the others wouldn’t be exposed. 

When John was done with his update, Derek almost asked him to talk about himself, his wife, his son, but he didn’t. A part of him knew he always held back because he knew the man would eventually pass on, but it was still lonely sometimes being with the same four people all the time. 

“SilverCorp is still around,” he informed John when the man asked him what was happening on his end. “They’ve been following us. I think they know who we are. They definitely know _what_ we are.” 

_“I’ve been seeing a lot about them on the news lately,”_ John confirmed. _“They’ve been hailed as innovators, miracle-workers. They’ve healed a lot of illnesses, including some people said couldn’t be healed. No one knows how they’re doing it, but if they’re following you and getting your blood, they’re not going to stop before they get what they want.”_

“Yeah.” Derek rubbed at his mouth. This wasn’t information he didn’t already know, Kira was on top of it the most out of all of them. She was also the most vocal about taking them out, but Derek didn’t begrudge her that sentiment. It was who she was. 

Death was viewed differently for people who couldn’t die. 

“Might split up for a few years. Get some distance.” Derek hated it, but it might be best. Change their appearances, stop taking the big jobs for a while, separate. 

_“You do what’s best for you, son. If you need a safe place, you know where to find me.”_

“Beacon Hills, California?” Derek asked, pulling his notebook from his pocket and flipping it to the next free page. 

_“Beacon Hills, California,”_ John agreed. _“I have some jobs for you, too. If you need any. Good ones. Sex traffickers, drug lords, that sort of thing.”_

“Sure. Give me some details and we can look into it.” 

Derek pulled another notebook off his nightstand so he could write down some of the information John had. It was never a lot of information, because the man was a cop, so he could only give them as much as he knew. Elias had worked for the Department of Defence, so his information had always been a bit meatier. But, anything they could get was still useful. Contacts were hard to come by because it was hard to explain how they never aged. 

“Thanks John. I hope you’re taking care of yourself.” 

_“Best I can,”_ John said, smile in his voice. _“You take care too, Derek. I know I don’t need to say it to you, but be careful. Stay safe.”_

“Thanks. Have a good night, chat again soon.” 

When the other man bid him goodnight, Derek hung up, staring down at the burner. He wondered what life must be like for people like John. People who could have families, have jobs, _real_ jobs, grow old, actually _die_. It was something he’d thought about many times over the past few millennia, but it wasn’t until a Stilinski had a new kid that the thoughts came more frequently. 

Derek didn’t know how things worked for them biologically, but he knew for a fact that Boyd and Erica had a _lot_ of sex—unfortunately for him, Kira and Isaac, Erica was _not_ quiet—and no matter how much time passed, Erica had never conceived. 

It was possible that her constant dying during jobs meant any potential child couldn’t actually develop, but Derek felt more inclined to believe that once they died, they were just... dead. Their bodies kept operating, but they weren’t actually alive anymore. He didn’t know how it worked, he just knew that children wasn’t a possibility for them.

Not that he’d ever _want_ to bring a child into this life. That sounded terrible. Worst even, what if he had a child that _could_ die? What, he’d just watch his kid grow up, grow old, and then die? Knowing he could never follow? That sounded terrible, and he didn’t want that.

In a way, it was good they couldn’t have children. Five people like them was bad enough, they didn’t need to bring any more into this world. He was sure there would be, and he was positive one day they honestly _would_ have to split up because their team would become much too large, but for now, he wanted to stay with his family as long as he could. 

His thoughts strayed back to Mischief briefly, wondering if the little boy looked anything like Harrison, or even Elias. Wondering if John looked like either of them. Wishing things were different and he could honestly go visit, just to meet them.

Shaking the feeling off, he got to his feet and turned the burner off, hiding it in his dresser again before heading out of the room. 

* * *

_“Hello?”_

Derek smiled. “Hey Mischief, it’s Derek. How are you?” 

_“Derek! You suck at time, dad’s at work.”_

“I must. I must have terrible timing,” he said with a small smile, leaning back on the bench he was seated on. He’d opted to go out for a walk, and while he didn’t normally have these conversations in public, it was the middle of the night, the park was empty, and he’d wanted the fresh air. 

Besides, they were in Tokyo right now, and SilverCorp was on their shit-list. Apparently they’d been trying to make some kind of deal with a Japanese pharmaceutical company, and it had been going really well until SilverCorp had attempted a hostile takeover. Now they were no longer welcome, because one did not fuck with the Japanese. 

Derek knew this personally after living with Kira for hundreds of years. 

On the bright side, it meant that they could stick around for a while and do some jobs without having to worry about SilverCorp watching them and discovering they truly were immortal. They weren’t sure how _much_ SilverCorp knew, just that it was enough to know their blood was valuable. Best to stay far away from them as much as possible. 

“How are you doing?” Derek asked, smiling a little. “Things going okay? How’s school?” 

_“Okay.”_

“Just okay?” Derek didn’t know how to talk to kids, but he knew Mischief would be next in line, and he’d never had the opportunity to speak to one of the Stilinski kids before they became his new contact, so his relationship with Mischief was already different. Not unpleasant, but it would probably hurt more when he inevitably met his end.

Sure, he was only around eight right now, so he had a long way to go, but time didn’t work that way for Derek and the others. Mischief being eight right now already felt like only a few days had passed since he was seven. Derek was sure his increased calls just made time feel even faster, but he liked having this weird friendship with this kid. 

He definitely spoke to him more often than he spoke to John. That made him a bit sad sometimes, because he wondered how much time he spent with his son. He hoped Claudia was home with him, at least, but he honestly didn’t know. It could’ve been that woman who sometimes was around, the one Mischief called ‘miss Melissa.’ 

_“I don’t like school,”_ Mischief informed him. 

“It’s hard,” Derek said, though he couldn’t honestly relate. He’d never gone to school, and while he and the others knew how to do most things, courtesy of libraries and a lot of free time, plus the internet now, school didn’t exist in the same sense as it did now back when they’d been growing up. Certainly not for Derek or Boyd. Neither had been high enough in status to earn an education. It wasn’t until after they were unkillable that they’d managed to earn their educations. 

Son of Hades. Son of Mars. 

_“People are stupid.”_

Oh. Apparently not the _school_ part, but the people part. “People can be,” he agreed. “But school is important. You need to get a good education.” 

_“It’s stupid.”_

Derek snorted. “A lot of things are stupid.”

His eyes snapped to the side when he heard someone approach, but after millennia with him, Derek could recognize Boyd anywhere. The man was slowly making his way towards him, hands in his pockets and gaze shifting around with interest. The park was lovely, and at this hour, peaceful. 

“Listen Mischief, I have to go. But you be good for your dad, okay? He works hard, and he cares about you. Take care of him for me, okay?” 

_“Okay.”_

“Okay.” He smiled slightly, Boyd reaching him and taking a seat. “Bye Mischief.” 

The kid hung up without another word. He seemed to lack in the farewell department sometimes. Derek didn’t know if that was a kid thing, or a Mischief thing. 

Pulling the phone away from his ear, he turned it off before pocketing it, leaning back more comfortably on the bench while he and Boyd sat in silence, staring out at the scenery. Japan was a beautiful place. He knew it meant a lot to Kira too, so they tried to come as much as possible. It was just an amazing, almost majestic place. Like it hadn’t allowed too much of its heritage to be overrun by foreigners.

It made it a really interesting and wonderful place to visit, and Derek would never tire of coming back here. He knew they wouldn’t stay in Tokyo long though, Kira always wanted to head out to her old village, and their job was never in a place this big. 

Apparently there was a lot of Yakuza trafficking children right now. It wasn’t something the Yakuza normally did, so it was a bit weird to hear about, but Boyd especially took that personally. Which made sense, considering. Derek would never say no to any job Boyd felt passionate about, and besides, he wasn’t exactly happy to hear about kids being trafficked either. 

_“You’ve been calling a lot,”_ Boyd said in Latin. It was always easier for them to converse in the language they were most comfortable and familiar with. They tried not to in public, because Latin wasn’t exactly a staple anymore, but they were alone in a park in Japan. They could afford to speak in whatever language they wanted, including Japanese. 

Derek always got great enjoyment out of seeing the startled looks on people’s faces when Erica, all blond hair and pale skin, spoke perfect Japanese right down to the accent. For some reason it always startled them more when it was Erica versus the rest of them. He didn’t know why, but he loved their expressions every time, especially when she was telling off people speaking about _her_ in Japanese. 

_“Have I?”_ he asked, as if he weren’t aware. _“I guess I just want to make sure we keep in touch. Haven’t been doing a good job of that in the past, so just trying to change it.”_

Boyd hummed in understanding, then turned to look at him briefly. _“You look different when you talk to him. The kid.”_

Derek shrugged. _“I like speaking to him. He’s going to be our next contact with that family, no harm in getting to know him.”_

There _was_ harm, and they both knew it. When Mischief grew up, grew old, and died, it would hurt. It would hurt so much more than when others they knew died. Death for people they cared about was final, it wasn’t like with them where they just kept coming back, over and over again. 

_“Do you ever think about it?”_ Boyd asked, turning to him. _“Severing ties with Stilinski? I know we started this because of Harrison, but they can’t help us. It’s not fair to them, knowing who we are, what we are. Knowing we’ll live forever as they keep being replaced by whoever comes after them.”_

 _“We need this,”_ Derek insisted quietly. Then amended, _“ **I** need this. I’m tired, Sese.”_ He shifted his gaze to his oldest friend, and saw the pity in his eyes. _“I’m so tired. I need something like this. I need to know man is still worth fighting to protect.”_

 _“We are also men,”_ Boyd argued. 

_“Are we?”_ Derek asked, turning to look ahead of them once more at the trees swaying in the wind across from them. _“Sometimes, I’m not so sure anymore.”_

* * *

The line rang. And rang. And rang. The voicemail clicked and picked up. 

Again. 

_“Hi, you’ve reached the Stilinski household. Please leave a message and we’ll—”_

Derek hung up, staring down at the burner, and trying very hard not to panic. He knew there had to be an explanation. Maybe they were on vacation. Maybe he happened to be calling at the _exact_ moment they’d been stepping out. Maybe they were in the process of moving. He didn’t know, but there _had_ to be a reason. 

“Still nothing?” Kira asked, voice soft and sympathetic. 

He tightened his grip around the phone, then turned it off and shoved it into his pocket. He knew this wasn’t about them. He knew this _couldn’t_ be about them. But still. 

He’d been trying to reach John for ten days. It wasn’t unusual for him to miss him, he often worked when Derek called and Mischief was the one who answered. But it had been ten days, and _no one_ had answered.

Not John, not Mischief, not even Claudia. Nobody was ever home. And that was concerning. Even if they’d gone away on a trip or something, he was sure they’d have changed their voicemail, wouldn’t they? He felt like they had the last time they’d gone away, back in 2006. Or maybe he just remembered Mischief telling him about it, the kid alternated between being talkative and curt. 

“Something feels wrong,” Derek said, feeling uncomfortable with this. He didn’t know _why_ , he just—had a feeling. Something was wrong. He was worried. 

Kira hesitated for a moment. “We could go,” she offered. “You and me. If you wanted to check in. We don’t have to make ourselves known. We can check in from a distance.” 

It was tempting. 

Honestly, it was _really_ tempting. He was worried about Mischief. And John. He wanted to make sure nothing had happened. But he couldn’t risk Kira. Not right now.

SilverCorp was getting pushier of late, a little bolder. They’d actually been cornered at the end of their last job and had been forced to fully expose themselves when a veritable tactical unit had come at them. They’d all died multiple times during that standoff, and while they’d killed everyone on the opposing side, Derek was sure news or video or _something_ had made its way back to the head honcho. 

They’d immediately split up, Isaac going with Boyd and Erica, and Derek heading off with Kira. They were currently lying low in a small town in Kosovo, trying to keep to themselves. If they left to check on the Stilinskis, it put them back on SilverCorp’s radar, and he didn’t want anything to happen to Kira because of him. 

“I’m sure it’s nothing,” he said, even though he knew she could hear the lie. 

She watched him for a long while, then sighed and stood, moving past him and kissing at the crown of his head. “Try tomorrow. Keep trying. We’ll give them one more week.” 

He grunted, but he appreciated it. One week was nothing for them, and yet felt like an eternity at the same time. He’d never had to worry about anyone other than the other four before. And his worry for them was always about exposure, never death. But with Mischief and John... 

What if they’d gotten into an accident? What if something had happened to them? What if Mischief was hurt, or kidnapped, or—he didn’t even know. This just felt wrong. It felt bad, like something had happened. 

He was worried. 

He tried calling again the next day. 

And the next. 

And the next. 

Every day he tried again, hoping he was wrong, _praying_ he was wrong. 

On the sixth day, he was beginning to think he wouldn’t last the week and he _might_ go—though without Kira—when finally, mercifully, _thankfully_ , the line clicked after the third ring. 

_“Hello, Stilinski household.”_

It was a woman’s voice, but not Claudia. Derek recognized her voice well enough from the few times he’d heard her in the background, as well as the very rare occasions where she’d answered the phone. This was someone else. He felt inclined to believe it was miss Melissa, as Mischief called her. The voice was familiar, but not enough that he’d heard it many times before. 

“Hi, I’m looking for John. Or Mischief.” He shouldn’t have asked about Mischief, but he just—needed to know he was okay. Something worrying was going on, and his gut was twisting horribly. He just needed to make sure the kid was all right. 

_“I’m–I’m sorry, but John isn’t... He’s not in a position to take your call,”_ the woman said, her voice quiet and sounding a bit sad. 

Panic and fear sliced through Derek at those words. “Is he okay? What happened? What about Mischief, is he hurt?” 

Kira came in from the other room at the sound of his raised voice, but she didn’t come closer. She just stood on the other side of the room in the entrance, watching him, looking a little tense. Like she wished she’d forced him to agree to leave that first day she’d said it. Like she knew something had happened and they should’ve gone to see Stilinski immediately. 

_“His wife passed away,”_ the woman said quietly. _“You must—not have heard.”_

Pain lanced through him at the words, his mouth falling open but nothing coming out. Mischief’s mother, John’s wife, had died. Death was final for people like that, and he didn’t know what to say. Fuck, Mischief was only _nine_. Shit. 

“I’m sorry,” he said automatically. Because wasn’t that what people usually said? He didn’t know, he’d never—Harrison was the last person he’d known who’d died, and while he didn’t know Claudia, he knew her husband. 

He knew her son. 

“I—no, I wasn’t... When? What happened?” 

_“A little over two weeks ago. Frontotemporal dementia.”_

John had never said anything. All this time, they’d been speaking a lot lately. And he’d spoken to Mischief a lot, too. He may have been a bit quieter than normal, but Mischief was kind of like that. He was a bit all over the place, he could be loud and talkative one time, and then quiet and curt the next. It was hard to tell from a kid. 

“Is Mischief okay? And John?” 

There was a small sigh on the other end, and then he heard a door shut. He knew she was in the Stilinski household, because he’d called their home phone, so he assumed she was maybe upstairs in one of the bedrooms. Probably the master bedroom. 

_“Can I ask who I’m speaking to before I divulge anything further?”_

He hesitated. He didn’t often give his name out. Claudia knew it because Mischief often said it, and honestly, he was sure John had told her _something_ about their weird relationship. But this was someone else, someone outside the household. He didn’t know how much she knew, didn’t even know if she was aware of his name. 

Not like it was his real name, anyway. Just his current one. He supposed he could always change it, if need be. “It’s Derek.” 

_“I thought it might be,”_ she said quietly. _“He told me you might call.”_

“John?”

 _“No, his son.”_ She sighed again, and he could tell how sad she was. She was holding it together fairly well, but she was sad. _“I don’t know much about your relationship with John, but I know enough to trust you with this information. I’ve been taking care of his son since Claudia died. John—he hasn’t been in a good place. A few of us managed to talk him into getting some help. He’s been drinking a lot, not going to work, not-not taking care of—”_ She cut herself off and he thought she might have started crying. 

He felt like he was going to throw up and he buried his face in his free hand, grip tightening around the phone. Fuck. John needed someone, _Mischief_ needed someone. He wanted to go, support them, help them, but he... 

He couldn’t. He had to worry about his own. They were in trouble, and he could tell John and Mischief were in good hands. People cared about them, and were helping them. They’d be okay. 

Derek had to believe they’d be okay. 

“I’m really sorry,” he said honestly. “I can’t even imagine. But thank you. For doing what you can. I wish I had known sooner. I’m sorry.” 

He heard the woman exhale shakily and clear her throat. _“I don’t know if I can help you, or if you—”_

“No,” Derek cut her off. “No, I’m—everything is fine. Thank you. The only thing I want you to do right now is take care of Mischief. He means a lot to me.” It felt weird admitting it, but it was the truth. That kid was so, so important to him. “Is he—how is he?” 

_“He’s hard to read,”_ she admitted. _“He isn’t talking much. I just stopped in to get a few more of his things. Trying to find some level of balance for him, some comforting things from home.”_

“Is he there? Can I—if he wants, can I talk to him?” 

Silence for a moment, then she said, _“Just one second. I’ll ask him.”_

“Thank you.” 

He heard her put down the phone and straightened, looking over at Kira. She looked sad, even though she didn’t know anything yet. 

“His wife died.” 

“Shit,” she said softly. “Is John okay?” 

He found it interesting to realize his first thought had been about Mischief, but logically speaking, it should have been about John. This was his wife, but Mischief was just a kid, and he’d lost his mother. Derek had still _had_ his mother the first time he’d died, and he’d been _twenty-five_. He couldn’t imagine how Mischief felt.

He literally could _not_ imagine. 

When he heard shuffling and a quiet, soothing voice down the line, he knew Melissa was back—well, he _assumed_ it was her—and then someone picked up the phone. 

_“Hello?”_

Derek felt his heart break a little at the sad, small voice coming down the line. It was nothing like the Mischief he was used to. “Hi Mischief. It’s Derek.” 

Mischief said nothing in response to that, not that Derek had really expected him to. He honestly didn’t know how to do this. 

“Listen, I just want you to know that I’m here for you, okay buddy? I’m really sorry about what’s happening right now, but I’m here, and I will always be here. Forever.” This was probably the first and only time he was ever going to be grateful for being able to say that word. “Is that miss Melissa that answered the phone?” 

Silence for a moment, then a small sniff and he said, _“Yeah.”_

“Okay. Do you want to give me her number? I can call you every day, if you need me to. Do you want me to call you?”

_“Yeah.”_

“Okay. Can you give me her number? Or can you give the phone back to miss Melissa?”

He heard nothing for a moment, then the woman was back. _“Yes?”_

“Can you give me your number? I don’t know what I can do, or if it will even help, but I want to do what I can for him.” 

_“Thank you,”_ she said, sincerely. He could tell she was falling apart herself and didn’t know what to do. She’d been around Mischief since he was at _least_ four, considering the first time Derek had ever called and heard his tiny little voice, so she knew this family well. She cared about them.

She was hurting alongside them. 

Derek pulled his notebook out to write her number down, and wrote her name in brackets beside it—Melissa McCall. 

They stayed on the phone only for a few moments longer, enough for her to explain that Mischief and her son Scott were best friends, and that she’d known Claudia since they took a birthing class together nine years ago. He apologized to her again for her loss, and silently wished he could explain who he was to this family, but knowing he couldn’t. He settled for saying he was just an old family friend, and then told her he’d speak to her again soon, considering he’d be calling her home for a while. 

After he hung up, he turned the burner off, then sighed and rubbed his face with his free hand. 

“We can go,” Kira said quietly from the doorway. 

“And do what?” Derek asked, voice just as soft. “What can we do? She’s already dead. We can’t fix this.” 

Kira pressed her lips together, then turned and left the room. Derek watched her go, then stared down at the phone and sighed again. 

Getting attached to someone was a bad idea. He knew it was, because they would die in the end. 

They all always died in the end. 

**TBC...**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Tags/Warnings:  
> \- Given this is a The Old Guard AU, there is a lot of death. Boyd is a Gladiator - we don't see him die, but it is referenced later that he tries to end his life. Kira as well, it's implied she attempts to end her.  
> \- Erica's death is only implied and not depicted, but she's gorgeous and she is taken advantage of before she is killed. This happens to her multiple times, but they are only ever referenced, not depicted.  
> \- Canon death of Claudia happens in this chapter. It is only ever seen from Derek's POV and it is brief as it is only when he speaks to Melissa and Stiles.  
> \- Just in case, there is a brief reference of how Erica is unable to conceive. She isn't trying to, but I know this can be triggering for some people. It's a very brief comment related to their immortality. 
> 
> Obligatory Copyright Shit:  
> \- Teen Wolf (c) Jeff Davis  
> \- The Old Guard (c) Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernández


	2. The Importance of Mischief

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional tags/warnings at the end of the chapter.

Derek inhaled sharply while sitting up, his vision crackling and pain exploding across his entire body for a split second before dissipating. It was always like that when he came back, his body screaming at him everywhere he’d ever been injured. He felt like he must not have a single inch of skin that hadn’t at one point in the past three thousand years been hurt, and every time he died and came back, it became more and more intolerable.

Even if the pain only lasted a second, it was never something fun to come back to. 

He heard a groan beside him and turned his head, Boyd rolling onto his side and struggling to push himself back to his feet. Looking around, he tried to figure out what had happened, and saw his entire team on their asses. They were all back already, Erica spitting curses while struggling to her feet, but it took him a second to realize why they’d all died. 

“Does that motherfucker have a _rocket launcher_?!” Isaac demanded furiously, blue eyes flashing dangerously while he struggled to his feet. 

“This guy has a lot more firepower than we were led to believe,” Kira grumbled, holding one hand out to Derek. He took it, allowing her to help haul him to his feet. 

“They’re cartel, they have to have the fun weapons,” Derek said, rolling his neck and pulling at his shirt slightly to get it away from his chest. It just stuck right back to it, blood from his injuries sticky and uncomfortable against his chest. He brushed shrapnel and other debris from his hair, focussing on the damage to the area around them. 

This was meant to be an easy in-and-out job. Get in, light the drugs on fire, get out. So far they hadn’t even managed to get _in_. The guy had some serious security, and they were honestly lucky they couldn’t die, because this was the third time in about two hours Derek had gotten taken out. He knew the smarter call would be to fall back and regroup, come back another day since they were obviously on high alert, but the shipment was slated to go out tomorrow so if they wanted to stop those drugs from hitting the streets, they had to do this now. 

“Hey.” Kira snapped her fingers in his face and he turned to her, startled. “You’re distracted. What’s with you?” 

“Nothing,” he insisted, though he knew it was true. He _was_ distracted. 

He’d spoken to John earlier in the day, and the man had a source inside SilverCorp. How he’d managed that, Derek had no idea, but word had it that they were planning something. Something big. Something involving The Five.

That was apparently what they called Derek and his family. The Five. He supposed it was more subtle than calling them The Immortals, but still. 

He knew he had to tell the others, he just hadn’t gotten around to it yet. He didn’t know _how_. They’d only recently gotten back together, they tried to stay split up as much as possible nowadays, but it was hard. Living together for so long made being apart almost painful. And lonely. Even when they weren’t _truly_ alone, not being together as a whole _felt_ lonely. He didn’t want to be apart from any of them. 

But they might have to again. More and more, technology was fucking them over. It was 2011 now, everyone had a smartphone, they all had cameras. Security cameras, laptop cameras, listening devices, the works. All of that stuff existed and posed a threat to them. They did their best to stay off the radar, but it was only a matter of time before they were exposed. 

Or _more_ exposed. Things were not going well. Honestly, Derek missed the old days, where the only way to get from point A to point B was to ride a horse. Or get on a boat. Hell, even the steam engine was a good alternative. 

But now they had planes, and smartphones, and webcams, and all that other stuff. He wouldn’t doubt if teleportation became a thing in the next hundred years. And the technology for finding falsified documents was getting more and more elaborate. 

They had good contacts, and they could do their own work perfectly themselves most of the time, but as things changed, it made it difficult for them to keep up. Derek wanted to be left alone to live his endless life in peace. If he couldn’t die in peace, he at least wanted to _live_ in peace. 

Sometimes he wished he could just buy an island in the middle of nowhere, live there for the rest of time. But even _that_ wasn’t possible—they’d already tried—because eventually, people would notice that Derek Hale was still alive, living on that island he bought hundreds of years ago. 

Sure, he could change his name, alter his appearance somewhat, but not enough to look different. They’d all thought about trying the plastic surgery thing in an attempt to alter their looks to avoid any kind of recognition—facial recognition was coming, as they often heard—but because of their... _problem_ , it was difficult to get _any_ form of surgery done. 

If someone cut into their skin, it would just heal back up. And the older they got, the faster it was. 

Derek remembered the first time Isaac had died after his first death. It had taken almost five full minutes for him to come back to life. It was always like that though. The more often they died, the faster they came back. Now, they’d all died so many times that usually they died, and then woke up virtually a second or so later. Of course, it depended on the injury as well. If there were bullets inside them, or shrapnel, or anything that their bodies had to expel, it could take a few seconds longer, but for the most part it tended to be relatively quick. 

When he realized they were waiting on him, he forced the thought from his mind. They had to stop these drugs from going out, they could deal with SilverCorp later. He had to compartmentalize before they fucked up and those drugs made it out into the world. 

“Okay,” he said staring at the heavily fortified building ahead of them. They’d been hiding out in the neighbouring building, but after having gotten blown up, the people inside probably thought they were all dead.

Not inaccurate. To be fair, not everyone could come back. 

“Kira, you and Boyd take the ground. Isaac and I will take the tower. Erica,” he turned to her, “how are you feeling about sniping?” 

“I’m feeling pissed they got blood in my hair,” she snapped, and obediently moved to grab one of their sniper cases before heading for the door. She was honestly the best at long-range weaponry. Derek felt it was because he, Kira and Boyd had grown up with swords, and Isaac had grown up a labourer. Sure, Erica had been a noblewoman, but anything that helped keep her outfits clean. Mud was easier to wash out than blood.

The rest of them filed out silently, Derek grabbing the semi-automatic off his shoulder and checking it while heading down the stairs. 

_“Something is wrong,”_ Boyd said. It had Derek pause only for half a second, because he’d spoken in ancient Greek. 

It was a language neither of them spoke much anymore. Boyd wasn’t particularly good at it, and Derek had always been using Latin when they’d been together that first thousand years. But it was clear Boyd knew something bad was looming, and he’d always know Derek better than the others. 

_“Later,”_ he insisted in the same language. _“Let’s get through this first.”_

 _“I don’t like being kept out of the loop,”_ Kira informed them in Latin. 

“I hate all of you,” Isaac muttered, grabbing at Derek’s sleeve lightly and jerking his head to the side. 

“Later,” Derek said to Boyd again, in English this time, and turned to follow Isaac. 

He knew this was the better course of action. It was what they should’ve done from the beginning. Kira and Boyd were good with their swords, which were silent. No matter how quiet silenced gunshots were, they were never quiet enough. Derek had never liked guns. They were useful, and he used them, but he didn’t like them. 

Sneaking towards the closest tower, staying hidden in the shadows, Derek planted himself against the outer wall, pulled the strap of his gun over his shoulder, and laced his hands together, boosting Isaac up. When he got to a point where he could comfortably pull himself up onto the bottom of the tower, he turned to hold one hand out to Derek. 

Securing his weapon more concretely, Derek stepped back a bit, ran for the wall, walked up it as far as he could go, and reached for Isaac. Once their hands clasped together, the other man pulled him up and Derek settled in beside him in the bottom part of the tower. They were fairly exposed, but Kira and Boyd would handle the ground. They just had to work on the rest. 

They didn’t like killing people, but sometimes it was the only way to achieve their goal. Murder was never the answer, but if people killed them first, they were fair game. 

Besides, druglords and traffickers of any kind were _always_ fair game. So were their employees. 

Derek pulled himself up and onto the ledge of the tower, staying out of sight on the edge so that when the people inside walked past one of the many windows, they didn’t spot him. As soon as the closest person passed, he reached out to knock lightly on the window, then retreated and moved around quickly to the next closest one. 

It was a game he’d played many times, and it always worked. The men inside the tower always crowded around the window with the noise, and that allowed him to open and drop into the tower from the next one. 

There were only three men in the tower, one half-leaning out the window with his gun aimed outward, and the other two hovering behind him with their weapons raised. 

Derek took two steps, reached up with both hands, and snapped the closest man’s neck. He dropped like a log, his neighbour barely having enough time to turn before Derek grabbed a knife from his thigh and jammed in into the man’s throat. 

He choked on his own blood while he fell, Derek pulling the knife back, and the third whipped around from the window with wide eyes, raising his weapon to shoot Derek. _“Monstruo!”_

 _“You have no idea,”_ Derek informed him in Spanish with a vicious grin. He hastily reached out to grab at the gun, hand closing over the end when it fired. He cursed as the bullet blew right through his hand, but the noise of it hadn’t been as loud as he’d expected, which was a win. 

Using the same knife he’d killed his friend with, he stabbed him right in the temple, his attacker jerking slightly before dropping. Derek yanked the knife out before the man fell and wiped the blood off on the sleeve of his black shirt. It was already ruined anyway, what with all the holes and his own blood on it, so a bit more wasn’t going to hurt. 

He turned in time to see Isaac standing at the controls, typing away at the keyboard. 

“Thanks for the assist,” he said sarcastically. 

“You had it,” Isaac retorted easily. 

Derek moved up beside him, watching him type until the red light above the gate outside turned green and began to open. The noise was—rather loud. And alerted everyone inside that they had company. 

Isaac sighed, standing to his full height and rubbing at his left shoulder. “I wasn’t looking to die again tonight, but I guess if I must.” 

“Stop being so fucking lazy,” Derek said, throwing the knife he was still holding at the door right as it opened and having it slam into another potential attacker’s forehead. He fell backwards, finger clenched around the trigger of the automatic weapon he was holding, spraying the inside of the tower with bullets. 

One caught Derek in the middle of his back, another caught his shoulder, and the last one he felt hit him in the back of the head, the pain of it disappearing instantly when he died.

Again. 

Yup, definitely one of those nights. 

* * *

Derek moved slowly through his bedroom, towel drying his hair while opening his dresser. He grabbed a pair of shorts and some sweats, as well as the burner phone he had in there, then shut it again. Tossing the phone onto the bed, he finished drying off, pulling on his shorts, then the sweats overtop, and went to hang the towel back up in the bathroom. 

He snatched the phone up off the bed, turning it on while moving slowly through the house. It was too quiet, and empty, and he hated it. He hated it more than anything else in the world, but this was how it had been for the past year. 

It had only _been_ for one year, but it felt like so much longer. It reminded him too much of his time alone that first thousand years before he’d met Boyd. Sure, he had television now, and the internet, and everything else that came with the age of technology, but he didn’t like being apart from his family. 

But it was for the best. SilverCorp had gotten worse of late. They’d been planning something big back in 2011, and had almost gotten Isaac and Erica during a job. Two years later and they actually _had_ captured Kira before she managed to escape—not that Derek and Boyd hadn’t been right outside to help get her out. 

And then last year all of them had gotten shot down while flying out to another job using a cargo plane. They’d paid off the pilot to get out of the country without having to go through the airport, and had gotten shot right out of the sky. They’d woken up strapped down and being hauled onto a boat with SilverCorp’s logo on it. 

Kira had gotten herself free first and had wreaked havoc while the rest of them got out of their own bonds, but as soon as everyone was dead and they got back to shore, Derek knew they had to split up. They were easy targets as a group, and much as he hated it, they needed time apart. 

Ten years. It was the safest amount of time for them. Ten years. No jobs, no travel, nothing. They each chose a location, and they went off alone. Even Boyd and Erica. He hated splitting them up, but they _had_ to. Things were getting dicey. SilverCorp was becoming more aggressive, and innocent people were dying because of them, like everyone who’d been on that cargo plane. They were civilians, they were just _working_. And Derek and his family had gotten them all killed. 

So they’d split up, and now Derek was sitting alone at a kitchen table in Squamish, British Columbia, Canada. All of them left the United States, because that was where SilverCorp was based.

But Derek couldn’t go far. He could never go far. Because Mischief was across the border, and he needed to stay close in case he needed him.

Not that he ever did anymore. He was sixteen by now, had a life, and friends, and went to school and hung out and all that fun teenage stuff. Well, according to what television told Derek, anyway. 

He was different from the child he’d known, but definitely better than he had been the few years after his mother had died. He’d bounced back well. John, not so much. But Mischief was doing well, and he was keeping an eye on John, and that was what mattered. 

Derek sometimes joked that Mischief sounded like the dad, but he tried not to bring it up much anymore because he could tell it hit a bit too close to home for the kid. His father had never really been the same since Claudia’s death. It wasn’t fair to Mischief, but all Derek could do was be there for him. 

Once the phone powered up, he dialled the number he’d long ago memorized, no longer needing to pull out his little notebook. He brought the phone up to his ear while staring out the window at the falling snow. He’d chosen this place thinking it wouldn’t snow in the winter, but had been extremely wrong. Probably his own fault, this was Canada after all. He’d just heard British Columbia didn’t get much snow. Of course he’d choose the one place in the province that _did_. 

The line rang a few times before it clicked, a familiar voice coming down the line, making Derek smile. 

_“Y’ello?”_

“Hi Mischief.” 

_“Yo! Derek! What is up? You know cell phones are a thing, right? You’re never gonna catch dad if you keep calling the landline, my dude.”_

Derek never got tired of hearing his voice. Especially now that they could have a real _conversation_ , he really enjoyed speaking to him. He honestly didn’t know _why_ Mischief was different, he just... _was_. He felt closer to him than he did any of the other Stilinskis, and he tried really hard not to think about the day he would call and it wouldn’t be Mischief answering the phone anymore. 

That day would come eventually. But not now, not today. So for today, he just let himself smile and speak to one of the only people in the world he actually liked using a phone for. 

“If I call your dad’s cell, how am I ever going to speak to you again?” 

Mischief let out an affronted noise at that, and Derek heard the slap of a hand against a chest, knowing he was going for dramatic. Mischief had always been over-dramatic. _“Derek! You wound me! You mean you wouldn’t call **my** cell? Harsh, man.”_

“I don’t like cell phones,” he admitted. Which was true. They were necessary, but he didn’t like them. 

_“Yeah, well, you know dad only keeps this stupid landline for you, right? Literally, no one else even knows this number. The last time I heard it ring and it wasn’t you was when I was like, five or something. Get with the times, man. If even **dad** is using a cell, I’m sure you can figure it out, too.”_

“I’m a little older than your dad,” Derek said, ignoring the fact that he _was_ using a cell phone. Mischief didn’t know that. 

_“Yeah right. You’re like, what, thirty?”_

“Do I sound thirty?” 

_“You sound twelve actually, puberty never hit?”_

Derek snorted, leaning back in his chair, the fake leather of his dinner seat sticking uncomfortably to his still damp back. He ignored that, enjoying his conversation with Mischief. They never spoke about anything important, but he liked being able to speak to him like he was normal.

Mischief didn’t know anything about him. Not yet, anyway. He was sure John would tell him eventually, but when he was older. Sixteen wasn’t a good time to drop a bomb like that. “By the way, you know Derek? Yeah, he’s immortal, he was actually friends with your great-grandfather during the second world war.” 

Actually, Derek often wondered how the conversation went. Whenever the Stilinski men told their sons, he wondered how they did it. It couldn’t be easy, he was sure it took a lot of explaining. Derek wouldn’t believe it himself, except—well, he’d died. Over and over. It took a bit of getting used to. 

“You’ve got a bit of a mean streak, you know that?” 

_“Yeah, it’s the sarcasm,”_ Mischief said. Derek rolled his eyes. 

“How are things going? How’s school?” 

_“Same old, same old. People suck, teachers suck, no one understands my brilliance.”_

“I think your brilliance is understood just fine when it’s applied properly.” 

_“Excuse me, sir,”_ Mischief said, sounding fake-insulted again. _“My brilliance is **always** applied properly, I’ll have you know.”_

“Are we going to talk about you writing an entire paper on the history of male circumcision for Economics class?” 

_“How did—seriously, did dad tell you about that? What a traitor!”_

“I’m sure it was a good paper.” 

_“It was a **great** paper, I’ll have you know. I deserved a much better grade than I got.”_

“And I’m sure you would’ve gotten a much better grade. If the topic of your essay had been about male circumcision.” 

_“You’re an asshole. Why do I even talk to you? I don’t even like you.”_

There was no heat in his words, and Derek just smiled, wondering—not for the first time—what Mischief looked like. He always tried to picture him somewhere between Harrison and Elias. He wondered what colour his eyes were, how he styled his hair, what his smile looked like. 

He often thought about Mischief. He wondered about this kid, what he was like when they weren’t on the phone, what he wanted to do with life. They spoke about a lot during their brief calls, but Mischief never really talked about his future, and Derek wondered if he just didn’t know what he wanted to do yet. But he knew Mischief was smart. _Really_ smart. And he was only getting smarter by the day, if only he could apply himself.

Mischief insisted he had something called ADHD. Derek had looked it up, but he wasn’t entirely sure he understood it. He’d researched it a lot over the past few years though. Not like he had anything better to do. 

After all, Derek had all the time in the world. Literally. 

“Your dad been working a lot?” 

_“Yup. You know him, workaholic. Sheriff’s job is never done.”_

Derek frowned. “Sheriff? Your dad’s the sheriff?” 

_“Hm? Oh, yeah. Did he—was that not something we mentioned?”_

“No.” 

_“Oh. Well, now you know. Dad’s the sheriff. Means he is always overworking.”_

“That’s amazing. How long ago did this happen?” 

He heard Mischief scratching at his cheek loudly while he hummed in thought. _“Like, two years? Maybe three? Not sure. But it’s been a while. Before I started playing Lacrosse, for sure.”_

“How’s that going?”

_“Why do you ask me a million questions every time you call? You know that you never answer any of **mine** , right? Like what super secret things you and dad talk about when you call? He always kicks me out of the house so I can’t listen in on the other line.” _

“He just wants to keep you safe.”

_“Then why do you talk to me? If I can’t listen in while you guys talk, how is it different when **we** do?” _

“Well for one thing, we talk about your schoolwork and how you’re turning into a sarcastic asshole.” 

_“Hardee har, you’re hilarious. Bet you’re a comedian with all that humour pouring out of your face.”_

“Like I said, sarcastic asshole,” Derek repeated with a smile. 

_“Whatever man.”_ Derek heard a doorbell ring in the background and Mischief grunted. _“That’s probably Scotty. Can’t be Jackson, because it only rang once. But sounds like your time is up. I gotta go have a life. Maybe you should try it sometime.”_

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Derek said with a small laugh. “Have a good day, Mischief.”

_“Yup. Later Derek. I’ll let dad know you called. Have a good one.”_

He hung up before Derek could say anything else. Some things never changed, and Mischief’s lack of ability to wait for someone to call farewell was definitely one of them. 

* * *

_“He has cancer.”_

Derek frowned at the words, digging through his fridge for something to drink and coming up short. He’d have to order from the store again. That was one advantage of technology, at least. The goal was to stay out of sight as much as possible, which meant having groceries delivered to his house worked out well because it kept him home all the time. 

Lonely and boring, but well, it was only for ten years, and he was on year three, so he’d manage. Really, the only thing keeping him sane these days was Mischief and Netflix. 

Thank fuck for Netflix, honestly. Mischief had been busy applying to university the past few months, and while he was mostly waiting on replies now, he was going crazy trying to keep his grades up. It was very strange to realize how quickly time was passing, he couldn’t believe Mischief was already eighteen. He felt like it was only yesterday he’d been speaking to a little four year old yelling into the phone.

To be fair, Mischief still yelled into the phone sometimes. He got over-excited a lot. 

“Who?” Derek asked, focussing back on the conversation at hand while straightening and shutting the fridge. 

_“Gerard Argent.”_

Derek frowned at the name. It sounded familiar, but he couldn’t place it right away. It took him until he walked into the living room to figure it out. “CEO of SilverCorp.” 

_“Stage three. Publicly, they say he’s had it for two years.”_ Kira said.

“You disagree.” A statement, not a question. Kira obviously had her own suspicions, and she tended to be right, more often than not. 

_“I think there’s a reason they started getting more aggressive about us.”_

That made sense. That actually made a lot of sense. They hadn’t been putting out any of their previous drugs, the ones that seemed to cure all ailments. Derek had assumed they’d run out, and while they likely _had_ run out given the five of them hadn’t gone on any jobs since going into hiding three years ago, it was more likely that they’d been using what little they had left in an attempt to prolong the CEO’s life. He’d probably have to move to regular treatments soon. 

The drug was still hailed as a miracle, even though the illnesses it claimed to cure seemed to come back before long. It wasn’t a permanent fix, it was just a temporary one. Like a band-aid, almost. The people had to keep re-applying the band-aid over and over again, which probably suited SilverCorp just fine since it meant more money. Derek figured it was likely because the amount of whatever they’d been extracting from their blood for the drugs wasn’t enough to permanently heal people the way it did them. Or maybe it was never _going_ to heal people to that degree. 

Maybe the drug was always just going to be something that could prolong someone’s life in comfort, but never fully _cure_ them. The disease would always eventually come back. 

And it sounded like cancer was something they couldn’t heal, not with just their blood, anyway. Probably another band-aid, that could help delay the effects of it, but not cure it to a degree where chemo could fully eradicate it. At least it explained why they were so desperate to get them. Gerard Argent was running out of time, and as a man with money well, money bought everything didn’t it? So he wasn’t willing to allow himself to die, and he didn’t care who _did_ have to die to save his own life.

Like the countless people he’d sent after them. All the innocent lives they’d been forced to take in an attempt to protect themselves and their secret. Gerard Argent was a greedy man who cared only about himself. 

“How long do you think he’s had it?” Derek asked, leaning against the back of his couch instead of sitting down on it. 

_“Eight, maybe nine years. They started getting worse when we did that job in Malaysia in 2008. My guess is that’s when he found out, and why he started getting sloppy.”_

“And desperate,” Derek agreed, rubbing the back of his head. “He thinks we can cure him.” 

_“He might not be wrong,”_ Kira said quietly. _“But that doesn’t mean we’re willing to. What if it turns him into something like us? We can’t have someone like that be like us, Derek.”_

“He won’t. We won’t let that happen. He can’t outlast us, we’ve got more time than he ever will, and more money. We just sit tight for a few more years, and hopefully the problem will resolve itself.” 

Kira let out a small hum of agreement. They were both silent for a moment, then she said, _“How are they? The others.”_

As if he didn’t know who she was asking about. “Fine. Isaac’s regretting going to Singapore, says it’s too hot for him. Erica’s fine, missing Boyd. Boyd is fine, missing Erica.”

_“And you?”_

“I’m fine.”

 _“Liar,”_ she said in Japanese. 

Derek let out a small laugh, leaning more heavily against the couch. _“I miss you,”_ he replied in the same language. _“All of you. I don’t like this, but it’s necessary.”_

Kira said nothing, but he knew she felt the same way. It wasn’t easy for any of them. Any time apart was never easy, but especially time apart _alone_ like this. But it was safer, for all of them. SilverCorp was looking for a set of five. It had already been three years, and Derek hadn’t seen hide nor hair of them since they’d parted ways. And he knew the others hadn’t, either. Given the news Kira had just given him, if they _had_ , he wouldn’t be able to reach them because Gerard Argent would’ve gotten to them by now. 

That was honestly the biggest concern he always had about them being apart. If he couldn’t reach one of them, he always had to assume the worst, and if one of them got caught, it meant the rest of them would literally tear the world apart trying to find them. 

_“Seven more years,”_ Kira said, switching back to English. 

“Seven more years,” Derek agreed. “Like no time at all.” 

_“For you. You act like a hundred years is only a few minutes. Some of us aren’t as old as you are.”_

“That’s a little rude.” 

He heard the smile in her voice when she said, _“I miss you Theodoros.”_

“Miss you too Akira. Call you again in a week.” 

_“Be safe.”_

“You too. Bye.”

She called her own farewell and hung up. Derek pulled the phone away and stared down at it, sighing before putting it aside. He had weekly calls with the others on specific days, so they had their phones on until he called and then turned them off. 

Technology really _was_ the worst. It was so easily used against them. And he hated that if something happened to one of them, it would take him a week to reach everyone. And worse, if _he_ was the one taken, the others wouldn’t know until Boyd missed his call. Then he’d have to wait until everyone’s applicable day to call them. 

It wasn’t a perfect system by any means, but it was the best he could do. 

Staring down at the phone, and knowing he shouldn’t—it would be the third time this week—his fingers dialled the familiar number and he brought it up to his ear. 

It only rang once, which made sense given the alarm he could hear in the background. 

_“Uh, hello?”_

“Mischief, is your kitchen on fire?” 

_“Kind of? Can you, uh—one second.”_

Derek laughed when he heard the phone get put down, the alarm still ringing loudly in his ear down the line with Mischief shouting at it to shut up. It took a few seconds, but eventually the noise stopped and Mischief returned, sounding almost out of breath. 

_“Hey Derek.”_

“How are you going to survive university if you can’t make food without burning down your kitchen?”

_“Hey man, that’s what the food hall is for. And for the record, popcorn **always** burns and sets off the fire alarm. Microwaves hate popcorn, it’s like those dumb bags were created for the sole purpose of setting off the fire alarm.”_

Derek laughed, shaking his head and moving around the couch to sit down, needing a nice conversation after the one he’d just had with Kira. Mischief was always good at making him feel better. He didn’t know why, he just knew that something about Mischief made him feel... lighter. Happier. He really cared about him. 

“Whatever makes you feel better. Your dad’s going to smell burnt popcorn all night.” 

_“Nah, dad’s working a double, because work is a thing he is always doing. Hopefully the smell won’t be as bad by tomorrow morning.”_

Hearing that made Derek a little sad. Despite the fact that he really liked speaking to Mischief, he also acknowledged that he was _often_ speaking to Mischief specifically _because_ John was at work. It made him unhappy to know Mischief spent a lot of time by himself. Derek knew first hand how lonely that could be, and he hated that Mischief experienced it too. 

“So, how are you? Anything new to report?”

 _“You literally called me two days ago. But,”_ Mischief said, stretching out the vowel and a grin in his voice, _“I do have some good news. I uh, got into RPI.”_

Derek remembered Mischief talking about that school while he’d been applying to different places. It was somewhere in the State of New York, if he recalled correctly. The Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. 

“Really? Mischief, that’s amazing! Congratulations.” 

_“Thanks.”_ He sounded really happy about it, but Derek could hear the hesitation, too. 

“So why don’t you sound more excited?” he asked when Mischief was silent for too long. 

Sighing almost explosively, like Derek was a huge pain in his ass, Mischief said, _“I don’t know, it’s just... I don’t know. I guess I’m worried, is all. It’s pretty far. I just don’t like being on the other side of the country from my dad.”_

“But you know he’d want you to go. He wants you to get a good education, and if this school is where you want to go, you should do it.” 

_“I know. I’ve just never been that far from him before. Probably sounds dumb to you, but I really worry about him.”_

“Caring about family is never dumb,” Derek promised him. “And I’ll be calling to check in on him. Might even manage to talk to him, for once. You know, instead of being stuck with you all the time.” 

_“You love my voice, you’re going to miss me while I’m away.”_

He would. He really would. He’d love to ask for his cell number, but that couldn’t happen. Derek already risked a lot calling the Stilinski landline as often as he did, but people so rarely _had_ landlines anymore that it felt safer somehow. Calling Mischief’s cell felt risky, both for Derek himself _and_ Mischief. 

“I’ll just have to make sure to call you often during the summer.” 

_“Yeah. It’s gonna be weird not hearing from you. You might actually have to leave voicemails for dad, can’t use me as the answering machine anymore.”_

Derek would never leave a voicemail, but he just said, “Guess so. So, tell me more about this school. Now that you’ve been accepted, I’m sure you’ve scoured their course list. What do they offer of interest for you?”

_“Well, I think I mentioned before, but it’s the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and it focusses on science and technology, which is right up my alley. Still deciding on the branch I want to follow, but I like science, and I like technology. They have a lot of computer science courses and just a bunch of stuff that looks interesting. And those kinds of skills come with really good jobs after graduation. It’s in New York, place called Troy.”_

“I’ve been to Troy,” Derek said, more as a private joke to himself. It wasn’t a lie, he’d been to Troy. Back when it _was_ Troy before everything changed. He was pretty sure it was now located somewhere in Turkey. 

_“You have? What are the odds! What was it like?”_

Derek was still smiling to himself. “Hot. People were rude. And very gullible.” 

_“Gullible? In what way?”_

“Don’t worry about it, that’s not important. Have you already accepted?”

_“I mean, I only just got the letter. Waiting to hear back from a few other places first. Haven’t even told dad yet. You’re the first.”_

“Thank you for telling me. I’m really proud of you.” 

Mischief snorted. _“Thanks **dad**.”_

Derek rolled his eyes. “You really are an asshole, you know that?” 

_“You remind me every time we talk.”_

“I miss the kid who was just loud and annoying. Now he’s loud and an asshole.”

_“And you’re still a comedian, congrats on your shitty humour.”_

“Thank you.” 

_“You’re welcome,”_ Mischief said sarcastically. _“Anyway, I need to go. The microwave still needs to be aired out and now I need to make a new dinner.”_

“Something healthier than popcorn, hopefully.” 

_“We’ll see. It was nice talking to you, Derek. Gonna hear from you again soon?”_

“I’ll call again,” he promised. “I want to hear about the schools you’re hearing back from. I’m sure you’ll have a lot of choices once you’ve gotten all the letters back.” 

_“Thanks Derek. Talk to you later.”_

As usual, Mischief hung up before he could call a farewell, but Derek still said, “Bye Mischief,” into the phone before he turned it off. 

* * *

“How have you been holding up? Everything going well?”

 _“Well as can be,”_ John said into the phone. He sounded tired, but then, he often did when Derek spoke to him. The man worked too much, and Derek knew that helping a bunch of immortals on the daily wasn’t exactly helping him very much. 

He appreciated the assistance though. John really _was_ good with his intel. And the fact that he had someone inside SilverCorp was doing wonders for their information. Kira still did a lot of research, but she had to be careful because things like that could be tracked. John’s inside man—or woman—was always giving them tidbits the media wasn’t privy to. 

Like the fact that Gerard was now down to his last few vials of drugs before he had to start regular cancer treatments, and hope for the best. They really _were_ keeping the disease at bay, and that irked Derek a lot. He wanted the man gone so they could go back to—not making a difference, really. But at least _helping_ people. They couldn’t do anything locked away in their individual homes. 

It was now year five, and with Mischief at school again, and Derek having exhausted everything on Netflix, he was starting to go a bit crazy. He was still debating starting up an Amazon Prime account, he hadn’t heard good things about that company and wasn’t sure he wanted to support it. But he really needed the distraction and entertainment. 

“You surviving without Mischief around?” Derek asked with a small smile. 

_“Somehow,”_ John said, amused. _“You remember I’m the dad, right?”_

“Sometimes. Other times, I forget and think he is.”

John laughed at that. _“Yeah, you and him both. Kid’s always been too smart for his own good.”_ John sighed, and Derek could imagine his expression turning sad. _“I miss him. I’m glad he went to RPI, but I miss him. I wish I could have him come home more often but, well.”_

Derek had to grind his teeth together to stop from offering him money. 

Again. 

This was Mischief’s second year of university, so they’d already played this song and dance before. The first year had been hard for Derek. Harder for John, he was sure, but he just—missed Mischief so much. John had told him about all the vacations Mischief had during the school year, but that he couldn’t afford to have him come home for any of them. It was just the return for the summer, every other holiday Mischief stayed out in New York. 

Derek had made the mistake of offering to pay for him to come back. It was the first time he’d ever encountered a truly angry John Stilinski. The man had been offended at the implication that he couldn’t take care of his own son, which wasn’t what Derek had been trying to say at all. John _knew_ Derek was immortal, and he _knew_ that he had more money than that selfish asshole Jeff Bezos. 

He literally couldn’t donate to more places than he did without people getting suspicious. He had all this money, and he would only get more as the years continued to pass. He missed Mischief as much as John did, though he’d never told him so. He’d wanted to pay for him to come home for purely selfish reasons, but John hadn’t taken it that way. 

After that disaster, Derek had never brought it up again. John tended to steer clear of the topic as well, likely because he recognized he’d been a bit harsh, but also because he didn’t want it addressed again. 

“Summer’s coming up soon,” Derek said, because it was the only thing he _could_ say. “Then he’ll be in your space so much you’ll wish he’d go back.” 

John laughed at that, because it was something they often joked about. Mischief definitely lived up to his namesake. He often snooped in his father’s files, and listened in on phonecalls. It was why whenever Derek called and spoke to John, he always sent his son out on an errand so he couldn’t listen in. He knew Mischief would find out eventually, but until it was his time to know, Derek would rather keep things as they were. 

_“Can I ask you a personal question, son?”_

Derek hated when one of the Stilinski men said this. Not Mischief, not yet, but he knew it would come eventually. Any ‘personal’ questions asked always related to his immortality. How was he immortal? How had he done it? How did one also become immortal? He didn’t know. He wished he’d never been one of them. He was glad the others weren’t alone, like he’d been for so many years, but he often wished he wasn’t the first. 

Being the first had been the absolute worst. Boyd often said he would’ve gone insane if Derek hadn’t been there for him at the beginning, and asked how he himself hadn’t. He didn’t know. He sometimes felt like maybe he had, but his mind had healed itself, as it did everything else. 

“Sure,” Derek said, because what else _could_ he say? 

John hesitated for a moment, which had Derek tensing further, but when he finally spoke, he didn’t say what Derek had been expecting at _all_. 

_“I remember dad in the early days. When you used to call. I remember how few and far between the calls were. When he started getting Alzheimer’s, when he told me the truth about you, and I took over the conversations, the calls were the same. Few and far between. But then you called one day, and since then you’ve been calling more often. They tend to go up and down in number as the years progress.”_

Derek said nothing. He didn’t really know what John was asking, what he wanted to know. He could guess, but he wasn’t going to assume. He didn’t want to say it, because if John had noticed, he didn’t know what that meant for the others. 

Boyd had already asked him once before about this. How did this honestly look to his family? Him constantly calling someone that he’d never met, probably never would. 

Why he was so involved in Mischief’s life. 

He didn’t know the answer to that, either. He just knew he cared about him, and he wanted to look out for him, get to know him. He knew it was stupid, and he knew it would hurt, but he couldn’t stop himself from feeling like he needed this person in his life. 

_“I couldn’t help but notice the number of calls coming from you during my son’s last year of high school. There were a lot of them. And then he went off to university, and you’ve called off and on while he was away, but then summer came, and he was back, and the calls started up again.”_

Still Derek said nothing. And for a moment, neither did John. 

_“I’m not judging. I’m not upset. I’m just asking why. Why is he different?”_

Derek shook his head, eyes downcast, staring at the table in front of him. He sighed, raking one hand through his hair. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “He just—makes me feel normal, I guess. He doesn’t know what I am, and when I used to call Elias, he was almost always the one who answered. I didn’t ever get the chance to speak to you when you were little. But with Mischief—the first time I spoke to him, he was four years old. And then every time after that, ninety-five percent of the time when I called, he was the one who answered. I feel like I know him, maybe even better than I knew Harrison. He’s important to me.” He winced slightly, knowing he might regret admitting this, but doing it anyway. “I want to have this with him for as long as I can. Until he knows about me. Until he knows what I am. I want this one piece of normal with someone that I care about.” 

John was silent for a moment, like he was digesting the words. It occurred to Derek how the man must feel. He was a Stilinski, too. He was no different from Harrison or Elias, but somehow he was the one who was being spoken to the least. Mischief was always at the forefront, and it was like John had been completely skipped over. 

“I don’t mean to make you feel unimportant,” he said, because he didn’t know what else to say. 

_“I’m not upset, son.”_ John let out a small laugh, like he found the thought amusing. Derek chose to believe he was sincere. _“I guess I always wondered what about him was different compared to my father, and me. But I know my son can suck people in. It’s a talent of his.”_

“You have an amazing son,” Derek agreed. 

_“Yeah. He’s pretty great.”_ John laughed. _“Well, I’ve given you the updates I’ve got, and while I wish I had something to share about my son, he is very tight-lipped about his time away. Probably under-age drinking, so I’ll let you tell me about that when he spills the beans.”_

“I’ll be sure to warn him I’m a dirty rat,” Derek said, which had John laughing. 

Honestly, he cared for this man as much as the others, he just didn’t get to speak to him like this often. Not on a personal level. But he was glad John seemed to be doing well, even if he was lonely. Mischief would be back. He always came back eventually. 

_“You take care of yourself, you hear? Watch out for yours.”_

“I will. You be careful too, John.”

_“Yup. Until next time.”_

“Bye John.” 

He waited for him to hang up, then pulled the phone away and turned it off. He’d already called Boyd today, having done so before calling John. He sounded like he was doing all right, but Derek knew he was missing Erica. Every time the five of them had ever split up, Boyd and Erica had always been together. To be apart now, for five years, probably felt endless. Moreso for Erica than Boyd, he thought. 

Boyd was like him. Sometimes time didn’t really mean anything. They’d lived for so long it was hard to remember that it moved differently for other people. Erica was still the newest of them, so five years was a _lot_. Five more to go before they could even think of meeting up again.

He knew they wouldn’t all do it at once. Derek could survive alone the longest, so he thought the best bet would be for Erica and Boyd to meet up, and Kira and Isaac. They could stay together, as two pairs, for maybe five or so years. After that, Derek could join Kira and Isaac—the only solace he had in their immortality was the knowledge that no matter how long they spent together, both would still be alive when he showed up. 

He hesitated to get all five of them back together again too soon, but he knew this was hard on the three youngest ones. Even Kira sometimes felt the effects of it, and Derek didn’t want them to suffer. He just wanted them _safe_. 

Tapping the burner against his hand a few times, he sighed and stood to put it away. 

Five more years. 

It was only five more years. 

* * *

Derek stood at the large windows of his terrace wearing sweats and a comfortable long-sleeved shirt, coffee in one hand and eyes on the snow falling in large flakes outside. He still didn’t like the cold, but he could appreciate the beauty of fresh snow, and the peace of early mornings. Squamish wasn’t exactly a quiet place, it was a bit touristy at times, but his place was on the outskirts and he didn’t see many people. 

Bears he saw, but not so much people. And times like this, really early in the morning, when the sun was just barely over the horizon and the snow was falling quietly, dusting the ground and trees—he appreciated the beauty of it. 

It was mid-February already. The last year felt like it had flown by, but he knew it was endless to most people. He couldn’t believe it was already 2020. He never in his life had thought he would live this long, and yet here he was. Three thousand years later. Over three thousand, really, but his age was difficult to keep track of most of the time. Calendars had changed so many times, he had more of a range than an actual age. 

He had to call Kira today. He figured he’d do that after his coffee, but maybe he should call John first. He’d called in December, because he knew the holidays were difficult for him. Derek and his family celebrated nothing, and they were usually always together, so the idea of specified times of year for family and giving seemed absurd to him, but it was one of those capitalist things that had risen with the times. He knew John missed Mischief the most during times of family gatherings, so December had been a month he’d made a point to call a few times. 

He hadn’t spoken to the man since then though. He should probably check in, make sure he was doing all right. Selfishly check to confirm the date Mischief was coming home. John usually planned for Mischief’s return in January, so he’s probably have all the dates booked by now. Derek wanted to know when he got back so he could call the following day.

He’d love to call the same day, but he wasn’t _that_ selfish. He’d give John time with his son. 

Finishing his coffee, he cleaned out his mug and then headed to the bedroom, bare feet padding lightly over the carpet. When he got to his burner, he turned it on and dialled the number with practised ease. 

It didn’t occur to him that it was still insanely early—just past six in the morning—but the line had already started to ring and he knew John would’ve woken at the first one. If he was even home, since he may be at work. The man’s schedule was difficult to predict. 

When it rang a second time, he thought perhaps he was out, and had just started to pull the phone away to hang up when the line clicked. 

_“Hello?”_

Derek froze. 

It was February. 

It was most definitely February. That voice—he shouldn’t be hearing that voice right now. That voice should still be in New York. 

And it shouldn’t sound so _broken_. 

“Mischief. What are—why are you home?” 

It wasn’t that Derek didn’t _want_ to be speaking to Mischief, because the Gods knew he was definitely counting down the days to summer on a regular basis, but this... was wrong. Mischief shouldn’t be home. And he didn’t sound... this was bad. Something was wrong. 

Derek’s hand tightened around the phone when he heard Mischief let out a shaky exhale. 

_“Dad got shot.”_

The world tipped sideways and Derek grabbed at the wall with one hand. 

No. 

No, no, _no_! 

“What? When?” 

_“Last month. Parrish says it was a home invasion. They... our place was a mess. I got on the first flight home when I found out.”_

Fuck. _Fuck_! Mischief had been dealing with this _alone_ for a _month_?! 

Derek ignored what he’d said about the home invasion, because he couldn’t handle finding out that this may have been his fault. SilverCorp weren’t giving up, and John had been helping him look into them with his contact. If his contact was found out, and told them anything about who was asking all the questions, then that meant John being shot was his fault.

His and Boyd’s and Kira’s and Isaac’s and Erica’s. 

It would be their fault. Because he was helping them. 

“Are you okay?” Derek asked, because in this moment, that was the absolute most _important_ thing to him. “Mischief, _are you okay_?” 

He heard his breath hitch, and then Derek’s heart broke when Mischief spoke next, because it was absolutely clear in every word that he was crying. _“I don’t know what I’m doing. Derek, I—I have **no** idea what I’m doing. Dad’s on life support, the bank keeps calling about the mortgage, hospital bills show up every day, and I-I don’t know how to do this. I can’t... I don’t know what I’m doing. What am I supposed to do?”_

Derek turned to stride purposefully back to his bedroom, pulling open his closet and grabbing his duffel. Tossing it onto the bed, he cradled the phone between his ear and his shoulder while he unzipped the bag and began pulling clothes out of his dresser. Normally he didn’t need to do this, he usually had clothes wherever he went, or he bought some new ones, but right now, he needed at _least_ a few sets. 

“You live in Beacon Hills, right? California? I know your number hasn’t changed, but you can still move and keep the same number. Have you moved, or are you still at the same place?”

 _“What?”_ Mischief asked, still clearly crying and trying to get himself under control. 

“Do you still live in Beacon Hills?” 

_“Yeah.”_

“I’m coming. I’m in Canada, but the border’s only about two hours away. I can make it to you in less than a day.”

_“Derek—”_

“No,” he snapped, standing straight and grabbing the phone again. “I know how your dad is about money. I know he doesn’t like handouts. I’m sure he’s told you I’ve got plenty of it, but I don’t care if I have to tie you down and go to the bank myself. I am coming, so just hold tight, and I’ll see you by tomorrow at the latest. Okay?” 

He heard Mischief breathing shakily on the other end, still trying to get himself to calm down, but he eventually said, _“Okay.”_

“Okay. Try and get some sleep. Stay hydrated, eat some food. I’ll see you soon.”

_“Okay. Derek?”_

“Yeah?”

_“Thank you.”_

Derek managed a small smile, hand tightening around the phone. “You have nothing to thank me for. I’ll see you soon.” 

He hung up, still shoving things into his duffel one-handed, and dialled another number he’d grown used to calling the past few years since he called it once a week. 

_“Derek.”_

“Are you safe?” he asked, pulling one of his swords from the top shelf of his closet and turning to figure out how to hide it in the duffel. He’d need to bring some weapons, since he didn’t want to arrive in California with nothing, but he was also crossing the border and that would be risky. He didn’t want to get detained for trying to bring a sword to the US from Canada.

 _“What happened?”_ Kira asked, jumping into Japanese instantly, like it was a comfort to her. 

“John got shot,” he said, tossing the sword on the bed and turning to find a gun instead. He’d figure out the sword problem in a minute when he had both hands. “I’m going to Beacon Hills.”

_“Mischief?”_

“Shaken up, but he’s a strong kid. He’s gonna be okay. I just need to help him, that’s all.” 

Kira was silent for a moment, then continued in Japanese. _“You know this could be them, right?”_

“It occurred to me,” he admitted, still in English. “But if it is, it’s our fault. I’m not leaving Mischief to clean up a mess we made.” He rubbed at his forehead with his free hand, trying to think. It was hard when he was panicking. This was a bit of a new feeling for him, because usually the people he cared about who died came back. That wouldn’t happen this time, with John. Or with Mischief, if something happened. 

It was making it hard for him to think rationally. He _knew_ there was a high probability this was a trap, but he couldn’t sit there and do _nothing_. He didn’t care what happened to him, Mischief needed him, and he was going to help him. He just wished he could call Boyd. It wasn’t that Kira wasn’t enough, but Boyd was the one he left in charge when things went sideways. He had a good mind for battle and strategy, always had. It was what made him a good Gladiator for years before he was finally bested. 

“Stay put,” he told her, pressing the palm of his hand into his left eye, trying so hard to think without panicking further. “Tomorrow’s my call with Isaac, I need you to take over. Call Isaac, then call Erica on Saturday, and next Monday call Boyd. All of you stay put, the plan hasn’t changed. Four more years.” 

_“And what about you?”_ Kira asked coldly, her tone sharp, and still speaking in Japanese. _“We’re to leave you to get taken and used as a lab rat?”_

“Don’t worry about me,” he snapped. “I’ll be fine.”

 _“And how will we **know** that?”_ she snapped back, switching to English. _“Derek, we have **no** idea what to expect. And if you go off the grid like this, how are we supposed to know what to do? How to find you?”_

“You can call Stilinski’s house. Mischief will make sure to keep you updated.”

_“And what if **he** gets shot, too?”_

Derek didn’t like the feelings those words evoked. He didn’t like the panic, the tightness in his chest, the bile rising in the back of his throat. He always said he couldn’t let himself get close to anyone outside his family, because they all always died in the end, and he didn’t need to go through that. 

But it was too late with Mischief. The thought of losing him... 

“He won’t,” he said fiercely. “I’m going. I’ll be fine. Call Isaac tomorrow.” 

He heard her let out an angry exhale, able to picture her expression perfectly in his mind. _“If you don’t come back, I’ll never forgive you.”_

“I will.” 

_“Be safe.”_

“You too. I’ll talk to you soon.” Derek hung up, turned the phone off, and then smashed it to pieces against his nightstand. He separated all the pieces into three different piles, grabbing plastic bags from the kitchen so he could put one-third into each. He would toss one-third out here, another third somewhere on the road and the last third right outside Beacon Hills. It was the safest way he knew to ensure no one could piece the phone back together. 

Returning to his packing, he figured he’d find a way to hide the sword. He had an American passport, so he hoped that meant he wouldn’t be scrutinized too much when he crossed the border, but it was always hit or miss for him. 

He didn’t care if he had to blast through the gate though, he was going to reach Beacon Hills, California within the next twenty-four hours, and absolutely _nothing_ was going to stop him. 

* * *

Derek had never been to Beacon Hills before. California, yes. Before it even _was_ California. But he’d never been to Beacon Hills unless he’d passed through it before it had _become_ Beacon Hills. It felt very strange driving into town, knowing he was about to meet Mischief for the first time. Knowing he was about to see John for the first time.

Knowing he might honestly be driving into a trap, though not for the first time. 

Once he’d passed the sign proclaiming “Welcome to Beacon Hills,” he had no idea what he should do. He definitely wanted to go to see Mischief immediately, but he wasn’t familiar with the town, and he didn’t know where he should go. 

It was while he was slowly making his way through what he figured had to be the heart of the town that he saw signs for the hospital and decided that would be the best place to start. He could go and pay off whatever bills were still outstanding, and get an idea of how bad it was. 

On top of that, this was the sheriff. He was sure _someone_ could tell him where his house was located. 

Now that he thought about it, it was entirely possible Mischief might just be at the hospital with his father. Of course, he may also have stuck around at home knowing Derek was on his way, but he wasn’t entirely certain of that. Either way, the hospital was definitely the best place for him to start, so he followed the signs there. 

Once he reached the lot, he parked furthest from the door and stared at the entrance. It was entirely likely this was a trap, but he wasn’t going to leave things like this. If John had gotten shot because of him, he was going to make this right however he could before he was taken away. 

Grabbing a hat and pulling it on, making sure to keep it low over his face, he yanked on a leather coat over his Henley—it wasn’t freezing like Squamish, but it was still _cold_ —and climbed out of the car. Slamming the door shut behind himself, he shoved his hands into the pockets of his coat and moved quickly towards the entrance, keeping his head down. 

Once inside, he wasn’t sure where to go. There was a person at a desk near the front and he asked about the sheriff. She gave him a suspicious look, probably because he was trying to keep his head down, but handed over a sign-in sheet and gave him the room number once he’d written his name down, along with a visitor’s badge. 

Just to be safe, he’d written his previous name of Dietrik Halks, because he was rather attached to Derek Hale and didn’t want to have to change it just yet. 

Moving towards the stairs, he climbed them instead of taking the elevator—less camera exposure—and headed down the corridor once he’d reached the appropriate floor. He passed by a nurse’s station, and while they glanced up, no one said anything. They looked to be busy, so he was sure they likely didn’t have time to worry about someone walking past them. He’d already signed in anyway, and was wearing the clip-on visitor’s badge, so they likely didn’t feel the need to address his presence. 

He knew when he reached the correct door because he walked right past it, an officer seated outside reading something on his phone. Shit, he hadn’t considered that someone might be watching John. After all, he was the sheriff, and he’d been shot. It made sense someone would be watching him. 

When he reached the end of the corridor, he rounded the corner and then stopped, standing there and trying to think on what to do. He supposed he didn’t _have_ to see John, but he just—wanted to know how bad it was. He wanted to make sure he was going to pull through. 

He also wanted details, but he highly doubted he was going to get th—

“Can I help you?” 

Derek tensed, someone having come up behind him. He turned his head slightly to look over his shoulder but kept it mostly angled downward so he could keep his face hidden. He saw hospital greens, so this was evidently someone who worked there. 

“No, thank you. I got turned around.” 

When he started walking away from her, moving forward so as not to have to double back, he paused when she spoke again. 

“Derek?” 

He tilted his head slightly, trying to figure out whether to respond or not. He figured his pause had probably answered well enough though, because she continued. 

“You must be Derek.” 

“How did you know?” 

She let out a small sigh, like he was being obtuse. “You called my house every day for three months after Claudia passed. I’m pretty sure I’d recognize your voice anywhere.” 

He’d called her house? But then that meant—“You must be Melissa.” 

“One and only. John always said that if anything happened to him, you might come around.”

“Might?” 

“He didn’t sound very sure about it. I take it the officer at the door scared you away?” 

“I don’t like having an audience.” 

“Come on, then. I’ll bring you in.” 

He hesitated, but he didn’t sense anything malicious in her tone. And he _did_ recognize her voice, just barely. It had been a long time since he’d heard it, and he honestly hadn’t kept the soundtrack of it in his brain. John’s, yes. Mischief’s, absolutely. Melissa McCall? Well, he remembered her name, at least. Had to count for something. 

Turning back towards her, she waited for him to move a bit closer, then led the way back around the corner towards the hospital room he’d bypassed. When she stopped and started to open the partially shut door, the officer glanced up at them. Derek kept his face angled away, knowing that would be suspicious, but he really didn’t want anyone to get too good of a look at him. 

“Who’s this?” the cop asked, clearly not liking the mystery.

“Old family friend. He’s famous, leave him be,” Melissa said curtly, pushing the door open and walking into the room. Derek followed behind her quickly, and the nurse shut the door behind him while the cop leaned over, as if trying to get a good look. 

He didn’t question her words about him being famous, he figured John would’ve had to tell her _something_. He assumed it was a long time ago, back when he’d gotten his head back after Claudia’s death. John likely would’ve wanted to make sure someone knew about Derek, though he doubted he’d told her the whole story. 

Not wanting to take the hat off entirely, he did lift the brim slightly so he could see better in the dim lighting of the room, moving forward and taking his first ever look at Noah John Stilinski. 

He looked much older than he’d been anticipating, but attributed that to the kind of job he had. There wasn’t much Harrison in him, but the shape of their noses was similar, and it looked like he also had the same sandy hair beneath the bandages wrapped around his head. A lot of the rest of his features looked to have come from Elias, which he supposed made sense given that was his father. 

Derek walked right up to the bed, feeling his chest ache at the number of wires connected to the man. IV leads, G-tube, heart-rate monitor, probably a catheter, a respirator, the works. 

“Can you tell me what happened?” he asked quietly. He didn’t want to make Mischief tell him, that seemed cruel. 

“He was working on a case,” Melissa said, just as softly, as if they both worried about waking him. Derek felt his chest clench even more at the words, but some of the tension eased out of him as she continued. “It was high profile. For our town, anyway. Son of one of the richest men in town was caught trying to sell a huge brick of cocaine with two of his friends. His father tried to buy John off, but he’s a good man, he wouldn’t be bought. The family hired someone to break in and steal evidence, but John came home early.” 

Derek could feel his blood boiling at the words. Someone had shot him for being a good man. He wanted to find the motherfucker and shoot _them_. Repeatedly. 

“Did they get him?” Derek asked darkly. “The man who shot him?” 

“Not yet,” she said softly, almost carefully, like she recognized his dangerous tone. “No one was supposed to get hurt. The family confessed to what they’d done when they found out the sheriff had been shot. They just wanted to protect their son, they didn’t want to hurt John.” 

“Their son is not above the law,” Derek said sharply, turning to glare in her direction, but he was mostly glaring at her feet since he didn’t raise his head. “They should have accepted his punishment and moved on, not hired someone that may have killed the sheriff.” 

“I’m not saying I agree, I just know they didn’t mean for this to happen,” Melissa said, still using that soft tone of voice, like she recognized what a man sounded like when he was pissed.

That just pissed Derek off more, but he managed to rein in his temper, turning back to John. They hadn’t found the man who’d shot him yet, which meant Derek could do that on his own. He didn’t need more innocent people to get hurt looking for this asshole. He certainly didn’t want _Mischief_ going off to try and find him. 

“How bad is it?” he asked. He wasn’t a medical professional, so anything she said would probably go over his head, but he listened anyway while she prattled off a few things. The disadvantage of never needing a hospital meant he and his knew very little about medicine in general. 

John was in a medically-induced coma, though Melissa mentioned that was only just done recently. He was shot four times, once in the head, twice in the chest and once in the stomach. There were no doubts at all that the shooter had been intending to kill him. He’d probably realized after having been caught that trying to escape without exposing his clients was impossible and had done what he thought was best. 

Evidently his clients didn’t feel the same way given they’d come forward. He was sure the culprit had torn the house apart to make it _look_ like a home invasion. 

Derek had to wonder how much Mischief had been told, given what he’d said on the phone. Probably not a lot, these people likely wanted to protect him. Or stop him from doing exactly what Derek was going to do, which was find the motherfucker and put a bullet in his brain. 

“Mischief said there are bills. I’d like to pay them.” 

“Mischief?” 

Derek frowned, turning to her slightly. “His son?” 

“Stiles?” Melissa asked, and then let out a laugh. “Wow. Mischief. That’s a name I haven’t heard in a long time. He hasn’t gone by that since he was a kid.” 

Stiles? Derek had never heard that name before. Mischief was the only one he’d ever been given, not that Stiles sounded any less weird. 

“What _is_ his name?” Derek asked, kind of confused now. John had never corrected him when he called his son Mischief, and neither had his son. 

“Mieczyslaw is his legal name. It was a bit of a mouthful for him when he was little, the best he could do was ‘mischief,’ which is what people called him for a while. Not entirely inaccurate, either.” 

Derek managed a small smile, because he’d always known Mischief was a troublemaker. 

“When he started middle school, he didn’t like the name anymore. People teased him about it, so he changed it to Stiles. It was a nickname his grandfather used for a long time, so he adopted it. He’s been Stiles ever since.” 

“Stiles,” Derek said slowly, like he was testing it on his tongue. “Guess I should switch with everyone else.” 

“He’s still pretty much full of mischief,” Melissa offered with a small laugh. “But he’d probably appreciate the change.” 

Nodding once, Derek turned back to look at John for a moment. When Melissa shifted by the door, he turned to follow after her, letting her precede him out of the room and lead the way down the corridor. 

They bypassed the nurse’s station at the front, Melissa kindly bringing him towards the administration office. They didn’t speak while they headed in that direction, but when they reached the office, she stopped him, one hand lightly brushing his arm. 

“It’s uh, very expensive,” she said softly, and he could tell just by her tone of voice that she was staring at the ground, almost like she was ashamed. As if she had any control over the price of medical care. 

“I have a high credit limit, it should be approved.” He had many credit cards—seriously, technology was the worst, and he severely disliked it—so he knew he could pay this off relatively easily with any one of them. 

“That’s not what I meant.” 

She meant it was a lot of money, but that was nothing for someone like him, so he just repeated, “I have a high credit limit.” 

“I know John talks about you every now and then, but it really is a lot of money. I can find out how much it is before they ring you through.” 

“No need, it’s not a problem.” 

Melissa seemed to be a little lost, like she was trying to subtly tell him that it really _was_ an astronomical amount. Before she could say anything else, he touched her shoulder lightly. 

“It’s fine. It’s not going to be a problem for me.” 

She took that for what it was and motioned him into the office. There was only one other person there, so he was called to one of the free cashiers and he handed over his card after confirming who he was there to pay for. It didn’t go through the first time, likely because of the amount being so high and the bank wondering if someone was using his card, so the man behind the counter very kindly called the bank from their desk phone and they spoke to Derek to confirm he was the one legitimately putting through that amount. After a short conversation, the payment was approved and Derek hung up. 

He informed the man to keep his card on file and to continue charging the necessary payments, then got a receipt and left the room. Melissa was waiting for him outside. He was sure she had other things to do, but he knew this was personal for her. She grabbed at his closest hand when he exited and moved to the side so as not to block the entrance. 

She squeezed it tightly once before releasing it. 

“Thank you,” she said quietly. “I don’t know a lot about your relationship with John, but I just—I couldn’t help. I didn’t know how to help. Thank you.” 

He nodded once. “I told them to charge any future expenses to my card. If any of the payments don’t go through, please let me know so I can call the bank.” 

“ _Thank_ you.” Her voice sounded tight this time, and he was sure she was trying to avoid crying. 

“Nothing to thank me for,” he said. “Though I could use a favour.”

“Anything.” 

“Could you tell me how to get to John’s house? I promised Stiles that I would be by.” The name switch came easily to him after centuries of doing it with his own family. A name was just a method of calling out to someone, it didn’t actually hold any meaning. 

Mieczyslaw, Mischief, Stiles. That didn’t matter, it was the person that was important, and he’d call him whatever Stiles wanted him to. 

Melissa gave him directions to the Stilinski household from the hospital and he thanked her for her help before heading out, returning his visitor’s badge at the front desk. It was just after four in the afternoon, given Derek had sped like nobody’s business to get to Beacon Hills, but he didn’t know if Stiles might be asleep or out running errands. He doubted the latter, and kind of hoped for the former. 

He doubted he’d been sleeping very much ever since his father had been shot. 

Climbing back into his car, Derek drove out of the lot and followed Melissa’s directions as best he could. He got turned around at one point, but managed to get back to where he’d taken the wrong street and went the right way this time. Once he reached John’s street, he slowed the car to a bit of a crawl, squinting through the windows at all the numbers. They were pretty faded for the most part, but he realized he didn’t need the numbers to find the right house. 

A cruiser was parked on the curb of a house near the end of the block, suggesting that was the house he wanted. He parked across the street since the driveway already had a sky blue Jeep taking up residence there and then climbed out of the Camaro. 

The house wasn’t very big, but it looked nice. Homey. Inviting. 

One of the windows in the living room was broken, having been boarded up from the inside. Seeing that reminded him of Melissa’s story and he felt anger bubbling up once more before he managed to tamp it down. First he had to make sure Stiles was okay, and he had to discuss what needed to be done about the mortgage. Then he could focus on finding the asshole and getting rid of him. 

Shutting his door, he pulled open the back one and grabbed his duffel. He left his sword where it was for now, since walking in with a sword might make Stiles uncomfortable, but he had a bunch of guns hidden in his bag so he felt good about safety right now. 

Once the car was locked up, he headed across the empty street and up the drive towards the front door. He could feel his heart pounding with anticipation, even though he wasn’t sure _why_. Excitement, he supposed. This was someone he’d known for so long, it would be weird to finally meet him in person. He wondered if he looked anything like John. He honestly didn’t have any kind of picture in his mind for what Stiles looked like, and it was going to be interesting finally putting a face to his voice. 

Climbing the porch steps, he reached out with his free hand to ring the bell, hearing it echo through the house. It took a few seconds for footsteps to tramp down the stairs and to the entrance. 

“Who is it?” Stiles called through the door. There was a peephole, as well as windows on either side of the door, but given what Derek had been told at the hospital, it was good that Stiles didn’t just blindly open the door for an unknown man. 

“It’s Derek.” 

Silence for a moment, like Stiles was debating the truth behind that statement, and then the lock clicked and the door opened. 

Derek had never pictured Stiles in his mind, he really hadn’t. Still, anything he’d ever imagined would never have prepared him for the person who opened the door. 

He was much taller than Derek had expected him to be. He attributed that moreso to the idea of him only being twenty-one, which felt like a child to someone as old as him, but Stiles was actually decently tall. Just under six foot, maybe about an inch shorter than Derek himself. 

Stiles definitely didn’t look his best right now, but even so he still looked stunning somehow. His hair was on the longer side, a chestnut sort of colour, with product in it that seemed to have expired so that it wasn’t styled anymore. His eyes were a deep honey colour, and even now seemed full of curiosity and intelligence. 

He was wearing a baggy shirt that was a few sizes too big for him—probably one of his dad’s, if Derek had to guess—and some jeans that looked like they hadn’t been washed in quite a long time. It was clear he wasn’t taking care of himself right now, but Derek could forgive him. Not everyone had the luxury of knowing those who died would come back. 

After he’d finished with his quick once-over of the gorgeous man in front of him, Derek focussed back on his face, seeing Stiles was doing the same to him. They’d spoken so many times over the years, it was probably just as surreal for Stiles as it was for him to have the other man in front of him. 

“I thought you’d be older,” Stiles admitted, somewhat subdued. It was very different from what Derek was used to hearing on the phone. He didn’t like it, he wanted to fix it.

“Good genes,” he said, because clearly Stiles didn’t know yet, and he wanted to try and keep that secret for a little while longer. “Can I come in?”

“Yeah. Yes, of course. Sorry.” Stiles moved aside and swept one arm out in invitation. 

Derek walked into the house slowly, looking around. He’d never been in any of the Stilinski houses before, so this was a first for him. It looked just as homey inside as it had outside, and he walked into the living room, eyes catching all the photo frames laid out on a shelf near an opening that led to the dining room, as well as the mantle above the fireplace. 

Stiles shut and locked the door and he heard the man come up behind him. 

“Thanks for coming.” 

“I’m sorry it took me so long,” Derek admitted, turning back to look at him. 

Stiles wasn’t crying. Not yet, anyway. His eyes were wet, but none of the moisture had spilled over. 

Derek wasn’t very good at being emotionally supportive. He wasn’t like Boyd, or even Erica. He and Kira were bad at the whole ‘emotions’ thing. But this was someone he truly, honestly cared about. And he was hurting, and upset, and scared. 

He could afford to show him a bit of compassion. 

Setting his duffel down on the couch, Derek moved back over to Stiles, and made sure to approach him slowly in case his presence wasn’t welcome. When he made it clear he was offering him a hug, Stiles moved right into his personal space and buried his face in Derek’s shoulder, gripping the back of his jacket tightly and tugging. 

Derek wrapped his arms around him and squeezed, letting out a soft sigh and pressing his cheek against Stiles’ head. He could feel him shaking, and wished that he could do more, that he could help him. 

He’d been thinking almost the entire ride down that maybe he could try something with his blood. Maybe he could figure out what SilverCorp had been doing that was helping cure people with their blood and use it to heal the sheriff. But he didn’t know enough about the effects of it. He didn’t know if it would permanently heal those wounds, or if they’d just re-appear later like people’s illnesses seemed to. 

He didn’t know what it actually _did_ , what the long-term would be, if it might change John in ways he didn’t _want_ to be changed. Derek knew it had to have some limitations for those who weren’t like him and his family, because if a small dose could delay the spread of cancer but not eliminate it, then their blood obviously wasn’t super-healing, but to be fair, it was also possible a larger, pure dose of it _could_ potentially cure Gerard Argent. 

But at what cost? What would happen to him afterwards? Would it come back down the line like everything else? Or would it turn him into one of them? What if he gave John some of his blood, had it work and heal him up, and then John became immortal, too? 

Nobody wanted to die, it was one of those things that everyone was afraid of. But after being alive for three thousand years, all Derek wanted was to finally find his own end. Nobody understood that so well as those who could never find that final peace. Everyone wanted to live forever until the opportunity was given to them. Then, it lost a bit of its charm. 

“I’m sorry,” Derek said. He was apologizing for a lot of things. For his father getting shot, for taking so long to call, for not being confident enough to try helping him, for not being able to _do more_. “I’m really sorry. But I’m right here, and I’m not going anywhere. I’ll be here for you as long as you need, I promise. I’m right here, Stiles.” 

He felt him tense in his arms and figured the hug had gone on long enough. Derek pulled back slowly, Stiles clearing his throat and sniffing before reaching up with one hand to wipe at his nose, avoiding Derek’s eye. 

It occurred to him that, while he was still wearing his hat, he hadn’t shied away from Stiles seeing his face. He would be sticking around anyway, and Stiles would need to know the truth at some point, so there was no reason to hide from him. Besides, it would be nice having someone know him, _truly_ know him. The closest person he’d ever had like that was Harrison, but even he didn’t know everything. 

He certainly didn’t know how old Derek was, just that he couldn’t die. The man probably would’ve had a heart attack if he found out the truth, not to mention Boyd having been a literal Gladiator. 

“Um, let me—the guest room. It’s upstairs.” 

“Thanks.” Derek turned to grab his duffel and followed Stiles up to the second level. They walked down a short corridor to an open doorway, Stiles motioning him in. Derek nodded once in thanks while passing him and set his bag down on the bed. 

When he turned back around, there was a gun in his face. 

“Who are you?” Stiles demanded, hands surprisingly steady when compared to the somewhat panicked look on his face. 

“Stiles,” Derek said slowly, raising both hands in a non-threatening way. “Stiles, put the gun down.” 

“Who the _fuck_ are you?” Stiles shouted, taking a step closer before seeming to realize that was a bad idea and moving back again, gun still aimed at Derek. “Are you the guy who shot dad? Huh? Come to finish the job? Or are you from SilverCorp? Snooping around to see what he’s found on you?”

“I told you,” he insisted, _really_ not wanting to get shot and have to explain himself right now, “I’m Derek.” 

“Bullshit!” Stiles shouted, and Derek saw tears fall from his eyes. He was panicked, and scared, and emotionally distraught. And clearly confused, because _he was Derek_ , and he didn’t know how to _prove_ that! He didn’t even know what had set Stiles off, he’d been fine a second ago. 

“Stiles—”

“You are _not_ Derek, so you have exactly _five seconds_ to tell me who the _fuck_ you are! Who _are_ you?!” 

“Listen to me,” Derek insisted, still holding out both hands in a placating manner. “Listen to my voice. You _know_ me. I’m Dere—”

He tensed when the gun went off, but Stiles had just shot at the spot between his feet, narrowly missing Derek’s left foot. He had surprisingly good aim, but then, he’d grown up with a cop for a dad so it made sense. 

“I am _not_ fucking around,” Stiles hissed, voice dropping dangerously. “I will shoot you in the kneecap, and if I call the cops, they will get here _so fast_ you won’t even have time to feel the pain. You are _not_ Derek. He would _never_ call me that.”

“Call you—” Derek cut himself off, and suddenly realized what had just happened. 

Someone Stiles had known his entire life over the phone had shown up at his door. He was younger than he should’ve been, considering how old Stiles himself was. And on top of that, he’d called him by a name he himself had _never_ told Derek. 

In all the time he’d known him, until literally twenty minutes ago at the hospital, the man in front of him had not been Stiles. 

“Listen to me,” Derek said again, very carefully. “Before I came over, I went to the hospital. I went to check on your dad and pay off some of the bills, because I knew you were worrying about them. While I was there, I met a woman, Melissa McCall. Miss Melissa, right?” 

Stiles’ eyebrows turned down slightly, but he didn’t lower the gun. 

“We were talking about what happened to John. And then I told her that his son had mentioned some bills, but I called him by a different name. She’s the one who told me his name was Stiles. But you’re right. Stiles isn’t what I usually call him. Ever since he answered the phone when he was four years old, and told me his name, but until just now at the hospital, I have only ever known John’s son as Mischief.” 

Stiles was breathing hard, staring intently at Derek, and now his hands were beginning to shake. Like he had no idea what to believe, and what to think. Because someone had tried to kill his dad, and he was waiting for a man he’d never met who should _not_ look twenty-five, but somehow did. And this person had called him Stiles, but also knew about him being Mischief, and he was so clearly scared and confused. 

“I’m gonna pull out my wallet, okay?” Derek kept one hand up, and slowly reached down with the other. “I promise you Mischief, _I am Derek_.” 

When he didn’t get shot, Derek followed through on pulling out his wallet. He held it out to Stiles, who hesitated, then took a step forward and snatched it with one hand, the other still aiming the gun at Derek, though it was a bit lower now. More at his chest than his head. 

Stiles kept his eyes on Derek while he opened the wallet one-handed, then brought it up to eye level so he could see both it and Derek. Evidently the license made him feel a _little_ more comfortable because he lowered the gun to his side, flicking the safety back on, looking back and forth between the license and Derek. 

“Derek Hale.” 

“Yes,” he agreed. 

Stiles inspected him for a while longer, then looked back at the license. Derek didn’t know what he was looking at until he spoke again. “Why does it say you were born in 1978?”

Of _course_ Stiles would notice that. He was a smart kid, and everyone always said so. Obviously he was going to notice that Derek was _not_ forty-two years old. 

“It’s a typo,” he said. “Should be ‘88.” 

“That would’ve made you fifteen when I was four.” 

“You are very good at math,” Derek informed him. Mostly because he didn’t know what else to say. He probably shouldn’t have handed over his wallet, because it also gave Stiles the ability to see how many fucking cards he had in there. 

Thankfully, Stiles just eyed him for a moment longer, then tossed him back his wallet, putting the gun back where it had been, which appeared to be the back of his pants. 

“Dad always said you were a little weird,” Stiles offered in way of explanation. 

Before Derek could say anything else, he tensed when the house phone rang. It was shriller than he’d ever expected it to be, and Stiles turned slightly to glance out the bedroom door. He looked uncertain, kind of confused, eyes shifting to Derek and then the door again. He hesitated, then left the room, wandering down the corridor. Derek followed him, mostly because he didn’t know what else to do.

And he wanted to stay close to him. If Stiles was worried enough for his safety to be carrying a gun, Derek was going to make sure he jumped in front of any bullets aimed in his direction. 

Stiles entered his father’s room, likely because it was the closest phone in the house right then, and answered the call. Derek stopped in the doorway, just wanting to keep him in sight, not actively eavesdrop. 

“Hello?” he asked. Silence while he listened, then his eyes shot to Derek briefly. “Sorry, you’ve got the wrong number. Have a good day.” He hung up the phone, looking back over at Derek. “You ever give anyone else the landline number?” 

Derek frowned. “What do you mean?” 

The phone began to ring again. Stiles turned to look at it, hesitated, then answered again. “Hello?” 

Another silence, then he pulled the phone away from his ear and pressed it against his chest, speaking quietly so as not to get picked up on the other end. 

“Some really angry Japanese lady is swearing down the line at me, but I’m pretty sure she’s looking for you because she specifically said ‘Derek.’”

“Fuck.” God dammit, he’d told her to fucking stay put and stick to the plan. 

Striding across the room, he held his hand out, Stiles placing the receiver in it. He brought it to his ear and switched to Japanese effortlessly. 

_“What are you doing? I told you to stick to the plan.”_

_“ **Excuse** me for checking you weren’t being used as a lab rat somewhere,”_ Kira snapped back in the same language. 

_“Did you at least call Isaac?”_ Derek demanded. 

_“What am I, incompetent like him? Yes, I called Isaac. Unfortunately, he’s fine.”_

Derek sighed and rubbed at his eyes, _really_ wishing he’d been able to call Boyd. He was sure Kira calling Isaac hadn’t gone well in any regard, because for one thing, Isaac likely would’ve panicked at hearing her voice since she was _third_ in line when shit went wrong, and on top of that, they’d probably spent more of the call snarking at each other than actually carrying on a conversation. 

“Clearly, so am I,” he informed her in English. 

_“How’s John?”_ she asked, also switching back. She was likely calming down now, because he was sure she’d been panicking for the past few hours about him. 

“Not great,” he admitted quietly. He didn’t go into detail, though he knew he could if he just switched languages. He just didn’t want to do that in front of Stiles, it felt rude. 

_“And Mischief?”_

“Hanging in there.” 

_“What’s he like?”_ she asked curiously, voice softening. 

Derek glanced at said individual and saw him hovering a few feet away at the foot of the bed, arms crossed and watching him intently. That look didn’t bode well. 

Turning his back on him, he sighed and said, “Unfortunately, very smart.” 

_“He doesn’t know yet?”_

“Not yet.” 

_“Might need to tell him, sooner rather than later.”_

Derek knew that, but—not yet. He wanted a bit more time with Stiles like this. Before he stared at him like he was some kind of freak. Or a God. They’d already had a bit of a rocky start, he wanted to try and hold on to his relationship with him as long as he could. 

“Not yet,” he repeated. “Stay put. Stay _safe_.” 

_“You too.”_

“Goodbye.” 

Kira hung up first and Derek sighed before doing the same, keeping his hand on the receiver for a few seconds before turning to look back at Stiles. 

“You speak Japanese.” 

“Do you often state your observations aloud like this?” Derek asked him curiously.

Stiles shrugged. “Usually makes people uncomfortable enough to slip up and say things they don’t mean to say. It’s already worked once on you, and you’ve been here all of ten minutes.” 

Derek frowned. “It hasn’t worked on me.” 

“You were born in 1988?” Stiles asked, eyebrows rising. “So, again, you’d have been fifteen when I was four. Okay, maybe that’s believable. But then I need to wonder what a fifteen year old is doing calling my dad all the time. It makes me wonder why I got sent outside during every conversation you guys had. Also, why has dad been looking into SilverCorp for you? They’ve been around since before I was born, so why would someone like you, who is _supposedly_ only eleven years older than me, need so much information on a company that would’ve meant nothing to them when they were still a teenager?  
“On top of that, how does a thirty-two year old have enough money to pay off all the hospital bills in one fell swoop that my dad couldn’t afford if he worked overtime for ten years? Plus you have a sweet ride outside, and every time we ever spoke, you never mentioned having a job. Your timing always sucks, like you don’t ever pay attention to what time of day it is, given you’ve called our house as early as six in the morning and as late as eleven at night. Sometimes you even called in the _middle_ of the night, but dad usually answered those calls before I did. That means that you travel a lot, and are out of the country a lot, and don’t pay attention to the time difference.  
“ _Plus_ I’ve heard dad mention things about you that literally make no sense, like the fact that you’re an old family friend because of my great-grandfather, but how the hell does that make any sense because he died before I was born, and again, you’re _supposedly_ only eleven years older than me, and I know for a _fact_ dad was a kid when great grandad died, so there’s no way that tracks in any way.   
“You refuse to call dad’s cell phone, and you only ever call the landline. You never leave a voicemail, and the number you call from is always unknown, like you’re using a burner or a scrambler to hide your actual number. Apparently you also speak Japanese, but in case you’ve forgotten, you’ve helped me with my French homework before, so I know you also speak French. Those are two very different languages, and neither are particularly easy to learn, Japanese especially.   
“On top of all that, when I aimed the gun at you, you didn’t look scared at all, you looked more worried that I was going to shoot myself which, for the record, is rude because I’ve known how to handle a gun since I was ten, as well as how to throw knives with accuracy _and_ win against someone twice my size in hand-to-hand. But you still didn’t look worried for your own life, so you either have a death wish, didn’t think I was going to shoot you, or you have some kind of military training that made you confident you could disarm me safely, which means you’d have had to serve. But if you’d served, you wouldn’t have been using your limited phone time calling my house to talk to my dad about a company that shouldn’t mean anything to you given how old you were when it started becoming a big name in the industry, which means your relationship with dad is something completely insane, and probably borderline Supernatural in nature.  
“How am I doing so far?” 

Derek did his absolute best to keep his face completely neutral, because if Stiles had figured all of that out in the literal ten minutes he’d been inside his house, then it would take him _no time_ to figure out Derek was an immortal warrior from Ancient Greece who was being hunted by SilverCorp as a means to use his blood to manufacture drugs to stop people from dying. 

“You should probably shower, you seem like you haven’t been tending to your hygiene,” Derek said instead, because what the fuck was he _supposed_ to say to an accusation like that? 

“So this _is_ Supernatural related then,” Stiles said, eyes widening slightly. 

“Why would you think that?” 

“Because you deflected instead of answering my question.” 

“Look.” Derek let out a harsh exhale and moved a few steps forward so he was standing a little closer to him. “Right now, the more you know, the more dangerous things become for you. I do _not_ want that. So can we just let the matter drop, you go take a shower, and I’ll make you something to eat. Okay?” 

Stiles stared at him for a long while, and it looked like he honestly _wasn’t_ going to let this go, but he seemed to recognize that Derek truly _did_ just want him to be safe, so he let out a small breath and shook his head. 

“Fine. I’ll let it drop. For now.” 

“Thank you.” Derek motioned the door. “I’m serious about the shower, by the way. When did you last take one?” 

Stiles just shrugged in answer, but Derek was glad he seemed to be doing at least a _little_ better. A lot had happened in a short amount of time, so it was probably keeping his brain distracted from what he _really_ wanted to be thinking about. It was good for him to focus on something other than his dad, though Derek kind of wished it was something less dangerous. 

He didn’t like the knowledge that if John died, he’d have no choice but to tell Stiles the truth. 

Though with the way things were going, he didn’t think his secret would remain _secret_ for very long.

**TBC...**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Tags/Warnings:  
> \- There is a lot of violence. The chapter starts with the team getting killed and then they kill a bunch of people working for a cartel with guns, swords and knives. It's not super graphically described, but it's enough that if you're not into that, maybe skim that part.  
> \- I know one person who hates this so there is a brief mention of plastic surgery. It's a short, throwaway comment about how it was attempted but couldn't work because of their healing, so it's not graphic or described or anything. 
> 
> Obligatory Copyright Shit:  
> \- Teen Wolf (c) Jeff Davis  
> \- The Old Guard (c) Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernández


	3. Meeting the Family

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional tags/warnings at the end of the chapter.

Derek didn’t sleep much that night. He wanted to believe it was because he was worried about SilverCorp finding out he’d come out of hiding, but he knew it was more about the fact that Stiles was in the other room. 

It still felt very strange to finally put a face to him. For years he’d just been this excitable kid on the other end of the line, but now he was an actual _person_. And he wasn’t a kid anymore. Of course, to someone like Derek, Stiles was a veritable tadpole given their age gap, but that was a bit unfair in the grand scheme of things. It wasn’t Derek’s fault he’d been born millennia before Stiles. 

After tossing and turning for a long while, he finally fell into a fitful sleep. When he woke up again a few hours later, he decided he’d had enough and got up. He wasn’t going to sleep any more, and he had his entire life to sleep, so a few missed hours here and there didn’t really change anything for him. 

It was four in the morning when he headed downstairs to the kitchen to make some coffee. He figured when it was closer to eight he could get some breakfast ready for Stiles and then they could head off to the bank. He was sure John would be mad when he found out Derek had paid off his mortgage, but it would already be done. 

Besides, his son was a little distraught. It wasn’t like he had the funds himself, and Derek was already pissed off that Stiles was missing school. He understood, because of course he did, but he was still mad about it. Mad about everything that had happened to him. John didn’t deserve what had happened to him, and Derek was still debating what to do.

What _if_ he could speed up the healing? But then, how was he supposed to administer his blood without anyone finding out? And even if he did and it worked, people would notice something weird had happened. What if _John_ got turned into a lab rat because of it and they found foreign cells in his system? 

Worse, what if it brought SilverCorp right to his door? After all, he would be the first person barring those _at_ SilverCorp who would have any amazing medical miracles occur so it just painted a target on his back. And if there was a target on John’s back, there was one on Stiles’ too. 

Moving into the man’s study, he sat down at his desk and began to open and close drawers, trying to find information on what he’d been working on before he got shot. He knew John wasn’t the kind of person to take files home and just leave them lying around—let alone _evidence_ , so the family who’d hired the shooter were _idiots_ —but he was hoping for some kind of clues. 

When he found nothing of interest, he logged onto John’s computer. He thankfully had a guest option so Derek began looking up articles about the shooting, wanting to get some information. Apparently the people responsible for this were the Dahler family, which Derek tucked away for later, but it was the shooter specifically he was interested in. 

Finding information was difficult for him. Erica and Kira were the ones who worked well with computers. Derek wasn’t horrible or anything, but he really had a grudge against technology so he wasn’t quite as good at the whole research thing as they both were. Still, he managed to get a name, at least. It was just a matter of finding said individual and making them pay. 

Honestly, Derek wanted to kill him. He wanted to murder the shit out of this motherfucker, make it slow, make it _last_. But he knew that was the anger in him, and he knew that wasn’t what John would’ve wanted. He’d want the man put away, arrested and tried. He wouldn’t want Derek to take the law into his own hands, even if he’d been doing it for years. 

It took a long time for him to convince himself he would do what John would’ve wanted instead of just killing the guy. He had to _find_ him first though. That would be a bit harder, but at least he had a name now. He just needed someone to help him—he was sure Kira would call again, he could get her to look into it for him. 

Worse came to worst, they could touch base with some of their usual contacts. They tried not to keep too many on the go, considering it was usually noticed when twenty or so years passed and Derek and his family looked exactly the same, but they did have a few. They might have lost some in the past six years of radio silence, but he’d have Boyd call around. 

Or maybe Erica, she’d been going a little crazy lately. 

By the time he was done with the research he was able to do on his own, he saw it was almost nine and realized Stiles was still sleeping. That was probably a good thing, the guy didn’t look like he’d been in the best shape when Derek had first shown up. 

Getting to his feet, he went to the kitchen to hunt down some food to make for breakfast. There were some eggs and bacon in the fridge, and some hashbrowns in the freezer, so Derek got to work making some bacon while the oven pre-heated. Once it was ready for the hashbrowns, he dropped six onto a baking tray and then got to work chopping some vegetables so he could make omelets. 

Stiles was still sleeping when breakfast was ready so Derek put a plate in the microwave for him and then sat at the table to eat his own meal, pulling over the books that were littered on the kitchen table. They looked to be some of Stiles’ schoolbooks, and Derek flipped through them just long enough to recognize he understood _nothing_ before shutting them again. 

He was only half-finished his plate when someone walked into the kitchen. 

“Why do you have a sword?” 

Derek wanted to sigh, because of _course_ Stiles was snooping through his shit. The guy was literally trying to give Derek a heart attack. He should’ve left the damn thing in the car, but he hadn’t felt comfortable doing that and had brought it in before going to bed. 

It probably would’ve been _safer_ in the car. Stiles couldn’t snoop in there without Derek hearing him leave the house. 

“Why are you going through my things?” he retorted, turning to Stiles while said individual walked further into the kitchen holding Derek’s sheathed sword.

“Why are you answering my question with another question?” Stiles set the sword down on the table and took a seat. 

“There’s food for you in the microwave.”

“So you like, Special Ops or something?”

“No,” Derek replied, because it was the truth. He bit into his last remaining hashbrown, keeping eye contact with Stiles while doing so. They stared at one another for a long while until Stiles’ stomach growled and he sighed, admitting defeat. 

Getting to his feet, he went to retrieve his breakfast from the microwave and poured himself some coffee. Derek grabbed the sword while his back was turned and set it down on the floor beside him instead. 

“Thanks for breakfast,” Stiles said while sitting once more, taking a sip of his coffee and then stabbing into his eggs. Derek was sure they weren’t particularly hot anymore, but it hadn’t been too long since he’d made the plate so it was probably tolerable as opposed to ice cold. 

“You’re welcome.” 

“So, what’s the plan?” Stiles asked, taking a sip of his coffee, even though his mouth was still full of eggs. 

“Plan?” 

“Yeah, what are we doing about the guy who shot dad?” 

“ _We_ are going to the bank after you’re done eating,” Derek informed him pointedly. “We’re going to handle the mortgage situation, and once that’s been dealt with, _you_ are going to work on this,” he motioned the books on the table, “and _I_ will deal with the man who shot John.” 

“I don’t think so,” Stiles insisted, picking up a hashbrown and biting into it, the loud crunch audible from across the table. “You’re not cutting me out of this.” 

“I’m fairly certain your father wouldn’t approve of you going off and getting yourself hurt.” 

“Well, he’s not really in a position to make his opinion known, is he? So I guess I can do what I want, seeing as I’m an adult and all.” 

“Just because you’re over eighteen doesn’t mean you’re an adult.” Derek would know. Isaac was twenty years old in looks, and almost seven-hundred in age, and he _still_ acted like a bratty child most of the time. 

“You’re not cutting me out,” Stiles said, a note of finality in his tone. “You need me.” 

“What I _need_ ,” Derek said, giving him another look, “is for you to focus on school.” 

“I’m on extended leave,” Stiles said, giving him a sarcastic smile. “Parrish helped me with the school so I could take the semester off, considering.” 

Derek had heard that name a few times since this had all started, and he didn’t like it. He didn’t know _why_ he didn’t like it, but he didn’t. He felt like he’d never heard it before until John had gotten shot, and that really irked him. “Who’s Parrish?” 

The cocked eyebrow he got from Stiles suggested he’d been a bit harsher than intended in his question. “One of dad’s deputies. He’s kind of like my big brother, I guess. His family moved to town when I was in middle school, and he ended up joining the sheriff’s station before I graduated high school. He’s been helping me with stuff from school and trying to figure out what happened to the guy that shot dad.” 

He didn’t know why, but hearing Stiles refer to this Parrish person as a ‘big brother’ made him relax a little. He wasn’t sure what kind of relationship they had, but he realized he didn’t like Stiles being close to anyone else, which was ridiculous because until yesterday, Derek had just been a voice on the other end of the line. Of _course_ Stiles had friends and other people he relied on, Derek just didn’t like thinking about it. 

“How much do you know?” Derek asked instead of voicing anything else about Parrish. “About what happened. You told me it was a home invasion.” 

Stiles shrugged. “That’s what Parrish and the other cops told me. They know I obsess about things, so they were probably hoping I would be a little...” Stiles bobbed his head from side to side while staring at the ceiling, as if looking for a word. “Well, not okay enough to look into it too much. It didn’t work, because news is news and in a town like BH, if the sheriff gets shot, it’s all that’s playing on the local news channels. Didn’t have much time to really dig though, I spent most of it with dad, and then bills and our quickly dwindling funds started to have my complete attention so,” he finished with a shrug. 

“Why didn’t you tell me it was more than a home invasion?” Derek asked. 

“I mean—I didn’t...” Stiles trailed off, winced, and then played with the edge of his one remaining hashbrown. “I guess I thought it didn’t matter. That you didn’t need the whole story because...” 

When Stiles went silent for too long, Derek realized Stiles thought he wouldn’t care. It was kind of a kick to the chest. He knew his relationship with Stiles was different than that with his father, but he would’ve still cared regardless. If he’d found out from another source, he may not have _come_ , exactly, but he’d have _cared_. He probably would’ve sent funds another way to help out, but he would’ve cared. 

“Anyway,” Stiles said, cramming the final hashbrown into his mouth while slapping his hands together over his empty plate, “it doesn’t matter. Parrish obviously isn’t having any luck finding him on his own, or he would’ve by now, so I should probably get on that.” 

When he stood with his coffee in one hand and turned as if to exit the kitchen, Derek jumped to his feet and grabbed at his closest arm to stop him. 

“We have other things to do first. You need to go to the bank. And we should probably stop back in to see your father, check how he’s doing.” 

Stiles stared at him for a long while, as if he wanted to argue. He probably felt the bank wasn’t important, but also acknowledged that it _was_. And it was Friday, which meant it would be closed or have reduced hours tomorrow, so they needed to do this now. 

Besides, he was sure Stiles _wanted_ to see his dad, it was probably just hard. But Derek was here now, and he would stay with him as long as he needed to. Anything to stop him from doing something stupid. 

“Fine,” Stiles conceded, sagging slightly. “Let me change.” 

Derek released his arm and watched him walk away, still holding his coffee. It hadn’t escaped Derek’s notice that the cupboards were relatively bare, as was the sink, which meant he probably had a plethora of dishes in his room. 

He was going to make him clean up once they got home. Stiles needed to keep up some kind of routine or he was going to lose his mind. 

Grabbing his sword from beside the kitchen table, Derek headed back upstairs to put it away, hoping Stiles hadn’t gone through _all_ of his things, but knowing it was probably too much to ask for. That meant he’d likely found his guns too, which explained his ‘Special Ops’ question. The guy was going to give Derek heart palpitations. 

After he’d pulled on his leather jacket and tied his boots, he headed back downstairs to wait on Stiles, pulling his cap over his head. He was halfway down the stairs when the doorbell rang and he paused. 

The entrance was directly in front of the stairs so that whoever it was could see Derek on the steps through one of the side windows. There was no way for him to escape notice, and when he saw the glint of a badge on the man’s shirt, he realized it was a cop.

If he didn’t answer the door, he was liable to have _more_ cops show up, not to mention this one would probably break it down, worried about Stiles. He just wasn’t particularly _happy_ about it. Melissa already knew he was in town, and he kind of wanted to keep a low profile. 

“Fuck,” he muttered, but obediently moved to the door anyway. He had the hat on, he could just keep his head down. 

Unlocking the door, he pulled it open. “Can I help you?” 

“Who are you?” the cop asked, and Derek noticed one hand shifting to the gun. He wondered if maybe he thought Derek was the same man who’d shot the sheriff, and had come back to get his son as some kind of leverage. 

“Family friend. Who are you?” 

“Family friend,” the cop echoed, sounding curt. “Where’s Stiles?” 

“Upstairs.” 

“You’ll have to forgive me if I don’t believe you.”

Thumping footsteps sounded from behind him then, and he tensed slightly when Stiles spoke. “Oh, hey Parrish.” 

So this was Parrish then. Guy seemed to be everywhere all of a sudden. 

“Stiles. Everything okay?” Parrish clearly sounded suspicious, and he hadn’t removed his hand from the butt of his gun. 

“Yeah, was just about to head out to the bank.” Stiles appeared beside him and motioned the back of the house. “Can you make sure you turned off the oven? I don’t want the house burning down while we’re out.” 

Derek didn’t like being told to walk away, but he also didn’t want Parrish to get a good look at him. Stiles knew this man so he obviously wasn’t a threat, but he still didn’t like it. The desire to remain hidden won out though, and he obediently turned to head down the corridor, but cocked his head while he went so he could listen in. 

Parrish lowered his voice when he spoke, but Stiles didn’t bother, like he wanted to make sure Derek knew he wasn’t spilling any deep, dark secrets of his. 

“No, it’s fine. He’s a friend of dad’s, just dropped by to check in. I was gonna bring him by the hospital after an errand.”

Derek checked that the oven was off, which it _was_ , and then headed back for the entrance as Parrish said something else. When he walked back into the corridor, Derek scowled when he found Parrish leaning further into the house, one hand on Stiles’ shoulder and saying something to him quietly. 

“I know,” Stiles said. “I won’t. I’m fine, I am.” 

“You’ll forgive me if I don’t believe you,” Parrish informed him with a sigh as Derek moved up beside him. He was the same height as Stiles, which meant he was a little shorter than Derek himself. He made sure to stand to his full height, feeling like he really wanted this guy to _back off_. 

Parrish didn’t seem to like the show of dominance, because his hand tightened on Stiles’ shoulder like he wanted to yank him away from Derek. 

“Jordan Parrish,” he said tightly, holding his other hand out for Derek to shake. “Local deputy.” 

“Derek,” he said simply, shaking his hand for the briefest of moments. 

“Didn’t catch your last name.”

“Didn’t give it.” 

“Okay,” Stiles said, clapping his hands. “We have a busy day, lots to do, and you’re probably uh, late for work so we should just...” Stiles motioned for Parrish to back up so they could leave the house. “I’ll drop by the station later.” 

“I’ll be expecting you,” Parrish said, but Derek knew even without looking, that the deputy’s eyes were locked on him. 

“Yup. Cool. Let’s uh, time is of the essence. Thanks for coming by.” 

Parrish finally released Stiles’ shoulder and stepped back. Stiles turned away to grab a hoodie, then smacked at Derek’s chest with the back of his hand before exiting the house, yanking the sweater on. Derek followed, the three of them standing on the porch, and Stiles locked the front door. 

They walked down the porch steps, Stiles and Parrish first side by side, and Derek taking up the rear. He could tell the cop didn’t trust him, and while that irked him _immensely_ , he tried to at least be glad that people seemed to be worried about Stiles. Much as he didn’t want to be noticed, and as much as he _really_ didn’t like how close Parrish and Stiles were, he at least felt a bit of comfort knowing that Stiles hadn’t been _entirely_ alone this entire time. 

It was obvious the people who cared about him couldn’t help him financially, but at least he’d had emotional support. Derek was just glad he could be both. 

Parrish paused beside his cruiser, which was parked behind John’s. Stiles had just waved while continuing to walk across the street to Derek’s car, a jet black Camaro, and Derek moved quickly to join him, unlocking the doors. He climbed behind the wheel as Stiles got into the other seat, and could see Parrish still standing beside his car, watching them, through his side mirror. 

“Nice guy,” he said sarcastically while starting the car. 

“He’s just being cautious. I mean, you _do_ kind of look like a serial killer. Do you ever smile?” 

He turned to give Stiles an annoyed look, which just had him point a finger in his face. 

“That’s what I mean. You literally look like you’re gonna kill me.” 

“Thinking about it,” he said, but he _did_ manage a smile this time and Stiles laughed. 

They pulled away from the curb, Stiles giving him directions to the bank. He’d half-expected to have Parrish tailing them the entire way there, but surprisingly the cop seemed to trust that Stiles was fine, because he didn’t turn up again. 

Not yet, anyway.

When they reached the bank, Derek parked around the back in their small lot and they headed inside. The mortgage was the bigger problem right now, so Stiles spoke to the person at the front to make an appointment. Luckily, this being a relatively small town, they’d only have to wait for half an hour, so Stiles motioned for them to head back out, saying he’d grab some coffees from the place next door and meet Derek at the car. 

Derek found that to be a little strange, but he went back to the car anyway, and within five minutes, Stiles was in the seat beside him, handing over a coffee with some sugar and cream packets.

“Sorry, didn’t know how you like your coffee.” 

“Black is fine, thanks.” Derek sipped at it, then put it in the cupholder. “What are we doing?” 

“Sitting in your car drinking coffee?” Stiles offered, sounding confused. 

“I got that part, but why?” 

Stiles shrugged. “You don’t seem to like being looked at too closely. I figured waiting in the bank would mean more people could see you. Same with the coffee shop. If we’re out here, there’s less of a chance of you being noticed.” 

Derek thought about that answer for a long while. “That’s why you told me to check the oven.” 

“Yeah, Parrish is kind of protective, and I knew he’d try and look into you if he got too much out of you. Figured you were a goner when he gave you his name, but you held your own.” 

“How did you know I didn’t want to be noticed?” Derek asked. 

Stiles turned to give him an unimpressed look. “You call from an unknown number, you never leave a voicemail, you never showed your face at my house until yesterday, you’re wearing that ridiculous hat, which you were also wearing yesterday, and you always keep your head down as much as you can help it.”

Derek frowned. “How do you know that?” 

“Melissa texted me last night to ask if you’d found my place okay. She said you were a little weird, kind of cagey, and refused to look up at anyone. When I got downstairs, you were doing the same thing with Parrish. You didn’t exactly make it hard to figure out that you don’t want anyone getting a good look at your face.” 

Stiles really _was_ smart. He was exceptionally observant and was really quick at putting things together. That didn’t bode well for Derek. 

“You’d make a good cop,” he said in response. 

“So I’ve been told.” Stiles grinned at him and took another sip of his coffee, the two of them looking out the windshield at the bank in front of them. 

* * *

The bank visit went well, and very quickly. When they went in for their meeting with the mortgage broker, they discussed John being behind on the payments—apparently he’d already been behind _before_ he’d been shot—and the woman started coming up with a plan for him to get back on track. 

Derek interrupted her before she could get too far and told her he was there to pay off the mortgage. She’d misunderstood and thought he meant what John was behind on, but he clarified _three times_ he wanted to pay the whole thing off. There was a penalty for breaking the contract, because that was how the banks avoided people paying things off all at once when they could finally afford it, but Derek just waved her words away about it and told her to get the paperwork drafted. 

Stiles was silent beside him the entire time, and Derek saw him clenching his hands together in his lap. He was probably uncomfortable, or embarrassed, but Derek wasn’t going to let another Stilinski man’s pride stop him. 

The declaration of source of funds was always one of the hardest for Derek to complete, considering, but he’d already planned for this the night before and it was easier to outline his investments and use that as his source of funds. 

Once the mortgage was paid off, Derek got a receipt and the broker assured him a letter would be sent to the house once everything was finalized in a few days. After they were done, Derek went to one of the tellers and asked them to transfer money from his account into Stiles’. 

Stiles tried to argue that, but he told him to stop being stubborn and to just take the money. Derek didn’t need it, and he didn’t want to have to leave in a hurry and have Stiles end up with nothing. He still needed groceries and household items, and with his dad in the hospital for the foreseeable future, Derek wasn’t going to risk leaving him struggling again. 

When they got back in the car, Derek told him before Stiles could open his mouth that he didn’t owe him anything, and he didn’t need any thank yous. Stiles said thank you anyway, very quietly, when Derek started the car.

They went to the hospital next so Stiles could spend some time with his father. They didn’t stay long, just long enough for someone to give Stiles an update on how he was doing. Stiles could obviously tell Derek was uncomfortable, but he’d have stayed longer if Stiles wanted to. He didn’t press though when Stiles insisted they could go. 

The cop stationed at the door gave him a huge hug before he left, and it occurred to Derek that everyone on the force likely knew him. He was the sheriff’s son, after all, and given Derek now knew Melissa was a nurse, and Claudia had died when he was nine, it was entirely likely that Stiles had spent a lot of time at the station with his father since no one could look after him at home. 

Derek made lunch when they got home, ordering Stiles to clean up the house. He did, though with a lot of grumbling, and by the time the food was ready, the place looked to be in some semblance of order. 

There were dishes in the cupboards again, at any rate. 

After lunch, Derek took them out once more to do a grocery run. He wanted to try and keep Stiles’ mind occupied as much as possible, because he didn’t want him going back to the house and looking into the man who’d shot his father. Derek was going to handle that, Stiles just had to focus on himself. 

Once they had groceries and other necessities, Derek stopped at a generic-looking clothing store and bought a couple of things. He usually had some stuff wherever he went, and what he didn’t have he tended to just buy. He hadn’t brought much with him this time around, and he didn’t know how long he was going to stay, so having a few extra sets wasn’t a bad thing. 

When they were back in the car heading home, Stiles said, almost _too_ casually, “So how much money do you have?” 

“Enough.”

“Hm. What’s your net worth?” 

“A lot.” 

“You know this is just going to make me _more_ determined to uncover all your secrets, right?” 

“I’d prefer if you respected me enough to stop trying.” 

Derek could tell Stiles felt backed into a corner, because he got quiet and scowled the whole ride home. 

Stiles’ cell phone rang while they were bringing the groceries in, and he insisted it was a call he had to take and left the kitchen. Derek didn’t try to listen in, but he could tell Stiles had just gone to sit on the stairs, his voice soft while he spoke to whoever was on the other end. 

His first thought was that it was a girlfriend, which annoyed him for some reason, but he pushed the feelings aside and kept putting groceries away. By the time he’d started the wash to clean his new clothes, he heard Stiles bidding farewell to someone named Jackson, and was a little pleased to know it was just a friend. Stiles had told him about Jackson during their many years of speaking over the phone. Him and some guy named Scott. 

Derek kept an eye on Stiles that night, not wanting him to obsessively look into what had happened to his dad, and waited until he was sure he was asleep before going to bed himself. 

He woke up first again and went down to make breakfast. Stiles joined him earlier this time, a little after eight, and they sat together eating when the doorbell rang. 

Derek was getting tired of hearing the doorbell ring, because every time it did, he tensed and worried it was SilverCorp.

“Wait here,” Stiles said, even though everything in Derek wanted to answer the door himself. Just in case. 

He could survive a bullet to the head. Stiles couldn’t. 

Derek _did_ stand and move closer to the kitchen doorway though, tilting his head so he could hear better while Stiles moved through the house and unlocked the front door. 

“Can I help you?” Stiles asked, making Derek tense even more, because it meant it was someone he didn’t recognize. 

The second a voice answered, Derek wanted to fucking _shoot them_. 

“Shit. No _wonder_ he called so damn often. He hasn’t gotten laid in _years_ and you are _fine_ , my friend.” 

“Uh, what?” Stiles asked, sounding horrendously confused as Derek moved out from the kitchen and practically stormed down the corridor. 

Isaac’s gaze shot past Stiles—which wasn’t hard, given the guy was a good few inches taller than him—and he beamed at Derek. “Hey boss.” 

“Isaac,” Derek said, moving past Stiles so he could grab at his family and yank him into the house, shutting the door loudly behind him. “What the fuck are you doing here? I told Kira to stay _put_!” 

“And as far as I am aware, Kira _is_ staying put.” Isaac’s smile was malicious when he said, “I’m not Kira.” 

If Stiles weren’t standing literally right beside him, he’d have shot the little shit in front of him. Isaac was _infuriating_ sometimes, it was a wonder he’d survived long enough to die of the damn plague and not been taken out by someone else long before then. 

“Uh, friend of yours?” Stiles asked uncertainly. 

“Kind of,” Derek muttered, because Isaac wasn’t his friend. He was his family, but he couldn’t exactly explain that to Stiles without giving him the full story. “Isaac, Stiles. Stiles, Isaac.” 

“Stiles?” Isaac cocked an eyebrow. “What happened to Mischief? Is this not Mischief?” Isaac pointed at Stiles in confusion. “Does he have a brother? Please say he has a brother, because I call dibs.” 

“There’s no dibs,” Derek snapped. “Stiles and Mischief are the same person, he stopped using Mischief when he was a kid.” 

“Damn.” Isaac sighed, turning to give Stiles another appreciative once-over. “Seriously though, if I’d known this was what you looked like, I’d have been the one calling.” 

Stiles just gave Isaac a weird look, but didn’t say anything else. He just turned to give Derek a confused one, but he didn’t have the energy to be dealing with this right now. 

“Put your stuff upstairs,” Derek muttered, because it was too late to send Isaac off. “Second door on the left.” 

Isaac saluted him, moving around the pair of them and climbing the stairs two at a time. Derek pinched the bridge of his nose, closing his eyes and trying to find patience. He knew Kira wouldn’t disobey him unless she felt his life was in danger, and Boyd was too smart to show up without being told to come, so he was hoping Erica would just stay where she was, too. 

He wished Kira hadn’t told Isaac the whole story, he wouldn’t have known where to go otherwise. Not that Isaac had known the sheriff’s address, but he knew the Stilinskis lived in Beacon Hills, and it wasn’t hard to just show up and ask for his address.

Actually, now that he really thought about it, he doubted that had come easily, people weren’t just going to _give_ a stranger the sheriff’s address knowing the man was in the hospital and his son was home alone after an attempt on his father’s life. That meant Isaac had probably flirted his way into getting an address, which meant he’d shown his face, and _this_ was why _Derek_ was in charge. 

“Sorry,” he said after a long silence, turning to Stiles. “He wasn’t supposed to come.” 

“Seeing as he is not an angry Japanese lady, I’m going to assume that isn’t who you were speaking to on the phone the other day.” 

“No.” Derek rubbed the back of his neck and sighed. “It’s too late to get him to leave. Hope you don’t mind another guest.” 

Stiles just shrugged, and Derek figured he would rather have more people around than less. He could relate to that, though he wasn’t particularly happy that Isaac had shown up. 

They were still standing in the entrance when Isaac came back down the stairs, clapping his hands together. 

“So, what’s the plan?” 

“Plan?” Derek asked. 

“About the dude who shot John. What have you found?” 

Derek gave Isaac an annoyed look, because for one thing, he was being insensitive—not unusual for Isaac—and for another, Derek was trying to _avoid_ Stiles’ involvement. 

It was evident that Isaac realized he’d said something wrong, probably reading it on Derek’s face, because he switched to French when he spoke next. 

_“We’re doing something about the guy, right?”_

“He speaks French,” Derek snapped, though acknowledged there was no way for Isaac to know that. He didn’t know how _good_ Stiles’ French was, but he didn’t want to risk it. He also wasn’t sure if Stiles spoke any Spanish, because he knew he was taking a language course at RPI but they hadn’t spoken about which one it was so he switched to Indonesian when he answered. 

Isaac’s Japanese _and_ Latin were terrible. 

_“I have a name, but I haven’t gotten any further than that,”_ Derek informed him. _“I want **him** to stay out of it.”_

Isaac nodded his understanding, clapped his hands together, then motioned down the hallway. “Computer this way? Cool, thanks.” 

“What did you just say?” Stiles demanded, rounding on Derek. “What is he doing? Hey, where are you going?” Stiles started to follow after Isaac but Derek grabbed him by the shirt and tugged him back. 

“ _You_ are staying out of this. _We_ will handle it.” 

“I can do something,” Stiles insisted. 

“No. I don’t want you getting hurt, John would never forgive me.” 

“I’m not gonna get _hurt_ ,” Stiles snapped. “Did you forget I almost shot you the other day? I can take care of myself.” 

“You know how to shoot a gun?” Isaac asked, head popping out of the study. “That’s adorable.” 

Stiles scowled in his direction before looking back at Derek. “I don’t think I like him.” 

“Nobody really likes him,” Derek said with a sigh. “Stiles—”

“I can’t just sit here and do nothing,” he insisted. Derek paused in what he was going to say when he looked at him, _really_ looked at him. 

Stiles was exceptionally good at hiding his emotions. Derek had honestly thought up until right now that he was fine. That he’d had a moment that first day he’d shown up and then gotten over it and was back to normal. But looking at him now, he could see in his eyes that he was seconds away from breaking. 

He was literally holding on by a thread, going out of his mind with worry over his father. Derek’s presence had been helping hold his attention, but only just. He needed _something_ to do, or he was going to break. 

“Fuck,” Derek muttered, rubbing at his mouth, then pointing a finger at Stiles. “Fine, you can help _but_ ,” he said loudly when Stiles straightened immediately, “you’re not coming with us. You can help us find the guy, but once we find him, you are staying _here_.” He pointed at the ground between them and raised his eyebrows. “Understood?” 

Stiles nodded emphatically in agreement and Derek let his shirt go. He turned and immediately ran up the stairs, tripping on his way and cursing before continuing on all fours. Derek sighed, feeling like this was a bad idea, but as long as Stiles stayed safe, that was all that mattered. And if finding this guy was going to help him keep it together, then he would allow it. 

He was going to keep an eye on Stiles though, because if he climbed out the back window and ran off to find the guy himself or something, Derek was going to kill him. 

Not literally like he would any of his family, but he would be _very mad_. 

Heading into the study where Isaac was, he watched him type away for a few moments before rubbing the back of his head and figuring both computers in the house were commandeered. He retreated to the living room so he could watch the news instead, because he didn’t know what else to do. 

He debated going out to buy a laptop, as well as another burner since he wanted to check in on Kira, Boyd and Erica, but he didn’t want to leave Stiles alone with Isaac. He didn’t trust Isaac to notice if Stiles ran off. 

He also didn’t really trust Isaac to keep his hands to himself. He was sure Isaac hadn’t gotten laid in the past six years either, and while Derek tended not to have very many urges, Isaac had a very active libido so he was probably _dying_ for a good fuck. 

And like Derek, Isaac didn’t discriminate. He wasn’t going to leave Stiles to his mercy, especially now that Derek knew Isaac found him attractive. 

He flipped between a few different news channels, occasionally catching something that his mind immediately turned into a job before he remembered they weren’t taking any right now and he forced it back to the task at hand. 

Every hour or so, he headed up to check in on Stiles, mostly just to reassure himself that he was still where he said he was. Every time, he found him sitting at his desk typing away, gaze a million miles away while his eyes shifted back and forth on the screen. He was so focussed on the task at hand that it was a little bit scary. 

He knew people were calling him to check in, because more than once he’d gone up to find Stiles on his phone. He supposed they’d been doing that since before Derek had shown up, but he hadn’t realized it because they called Stiles’ cell phone. So far, the only call on the house phone had been Kira’s, and Derek had to wonder if Stiles hadn’t been telling the truth all those times he’d said John had kept the landline _only_ for Derek. 

He tried to get Stiles to take a break for lunch, but he wouldn’t, so Derek just brought him some food and he and Isaac ate together in the kitchen. He could tell Isaac was expecting a reprimand, but Derek had too much to worry about without making him feel like shit for caring enough to show up. So he didn’t bother yelling at him and they switched places after lunch, Derek on the computer and Isaac on the television. 

It was almost four in the afternoon when footsteps thumped loudly down the stairs and Stiles appeared at the door to the study. 

“William Barrow is in room 212 of the I-5 Inn off the interstate, 2210 Manthey road in Stockton. It’s about two hours out from here, but you can get there in half that during off hours when the roads aren’t as busy. He’s fifty-two years old, 6'3", short sandy-coloured hair, greyish-blue eyes and weighs about one-forty give or take, which is super unhealthy for someone his height.”

Derek stared at him, fingers paused over the keyboard while he tried to figure out what the hell he’d just heard. Stiles had just walked in and spouted out a shit-ton of information in only a few seconds after having researched for a few hours. Derek had been at this for basically two days, and he still wasn’t any closer to an answer than he had been yesterday. 

Isaac appeared behind Stiles, giving him a weird look, then glanced over at Derek. He didn’t know what to say, so he just kept staring at Stiles. 

“Do you need me to write it down for you, or are you good?” Stiles asked, eyebrows raised. 

“How did you get all that so fast?” Isaac demanded. 

“I’m good at finding things.” He pulled his phone out, and Derek through at first that he’d gotten a call, but when he put it back right away he realized he’d been checking the time. “Rush hour’s about to start overall so probably not a good idea to head out now. Should probably wait for dark too, since I’m sure the whole ‘staying out of sight’ thing still applies, though we could also just call Parrish and have him go down and pick him up.” 

That fucking name again. Derek was starting to hate that stupid Parrish guy. “We’ll handle it.”

Stiles shrugged, then said he was going to grab a snack and disappeared. Isaac watched him walk away, then turned back to Derek with a ‘what the fuck’ look on his face. 

“We’re not good at this whole investigating thing,” Derek said. 

“We’re really not,” Isaac agreed. 

In their defence, their jobs usually either _came_ with information, or they just showed up and winged it. People who could get shot repeatedly and keep getting up didn’t really need to worry so much about the details. 

Then again, Kira tended to have a bit _more_ for them, and Derek was sure she’d have given them a bit more headway if she’d been present. But, she wasn’t, so apparently they had Stiles. 

Derek didn’t think Kira would’ve been able to get them _quite_ this much though.

With that out of the way for the day, Isaac went to check his weapons—even though Derek insisted they would _not_ kill this guy, just knock him around a bit—and Derek went to spend some time with Stiles. 

They sat in the kitchen for a while, Stiles eating some popcorn while they spoke about the courses he was taking. It was all computer shit that mostly went over Derek’s head, but explained why he was so good with them.   
  
Derek liked talking to Stiles. He was an interesting person, and he was pretty animated when he really got going. His eyes got all bright and he spoke faster and faster when he got excited. It was actually really nice to watch, and he was happy to be able to keep his mind occupied and away from his worries about his father. 

They got pizza delivered for dinner at quarter-to-six and Derek ordered Stiles to stay put when he and Isaac left at nine. 

There was an attempted cop-killer on the loose, and he’d chosen to shoot the _wrong_ cop. 

* * *

Roughing up William Barrow before dumping him in front of the closest police station was not as satisfying as Derek had hoped it would be. He knew it was because the warrior side of him was insisting he tear him limb from limb and drive a sword through his heart, but the older, wiser part of him insisted that wasn’t what John would’ve wanted. 

So he and Isaac just roughed him up to make themselves feel a little better and had brought him to the cops so they could deal with it. He was expecting them to call _Parrish_ when they could confirm what he’d done and he’d hopefully call Stiles to tell him the good news. 

By the time they got back to the Stilinski house, it was almost three in the morning, but they were both used to being up late for jobs so neither of them felt any form of fatigue. Derek parked the car on the curb and turned to Isaac when he slapped his shoulder. 

He was looking past Derek, who turned to glance at the Stilinski house as well. 

There was a red car parked behind the Jeep in the driveway, the butt of it out over the curb. 

“Whose car is that?” Isaac asked.

Derek tried to tamp down the spike of panic in his chest. He just reached back for his sword, unsheathing it while Isaac checked how many bullets he had left in his handgun. He hadn’t used it tonight so it should still be full, but Derek figured he was checking out of habit. 

If something had happened to Stiles, Derek was going to kill every single person in the fucking house. 

They climbed out of the car and shut the doors silently, the two of them moving across the street at a crouch and staying low. All the lights were off, and there weren’t very many street lamps along this road so it was easy to stick to the shadows. 

Derek headed up the porch steps first, trying the door and hating when he found it unlocked. He glanced back at Isaac, who nodded while gripping his gun more securely, and Derek eased the door open. Isaac went in first, clearing the entrance and living room. Derek followed behind him, shutting the door silently and twisting his sword once in his other hand. 

The only light that was on seemed to be the one in the kitchen, so they shared a look and moved towards it together. Once they reached the door, staying just out of sight, Isaac glanced at Derek, nodded once, then entered the room quickly with his gun up. 

Derek followed, sword up and out, ready for whatever sight greeted him, and then immediately cursed, lowering his sword. 

“Great,” Isaac muttered. 

Erica was sitting at one of the kitchen chairs, wearing a tight, short blue dress with her legs crossed and gold heels. She had a magazine open in front of her on the table, her hair was in luscious blonde curls, and she was made up like she was expecting Boyd to walk in any second and wanted to look her best. 

She didn’t even glance up at them, just shifted one hand in a wiggling-fingers wave and flipped the page of her magazine with the other. 

Stiles was hovering awkwardly by the back door with his arms crossed, hair mussed and wearing a loose shirt and plaid pyjama pants. It looked like he’d been sleeping when Erica had shown up, but had clearly been awake for a while now since his eyes were alert. 

“What are you doing here?” Derek demanded, sheathing his sword once more and setting it on the table. Erica just nudged the tip away when it covered the corner of her magazine. 

“Kira called. I knew Isaac would already be here, and I wanted to make sure you were both okay.” 

“This wasn’t the plan,” he snapped. 

“The plan changed when you put yourself at risk,” Erica said curtly, looking up at him, her eyes flashing dangerously. “We weren’t going to leave you here alone. If you’re here, then so are we.”

Derek rubbed at his face with both hands, wanting to scream at her. He didn’t for the same reason he hadn’t at Isaac. They weren’t trying to be difficult, they were just worried. And it had been six years since they’d last seen one another. While it wasn’t that long in the grand scheme of things, it was the longest any of them had ever been alone barring Derek. He could understand them being worried about their family. He was worried too.

It was why he didn’t want them here! Because he didn’t want anything to happen to them! 

“Did anyone see you?” Derek asked, letting his hands drop. 

“No,” she said easily, eyes on her magazine once more. “Unlike Isaac, I was smart enough to show up in the middle of the night. Took forever for Mischief to let me in though, so that was annoying.” She motioned over her shoulder impatiently. “Also his name is Stiles now, did you know?” 

“I’d heard,” Derek muttered. He sighed and rubbed his face again. It was too late to make them leave. If they were both here, he knew it was only a matter of time before Kira showed up. And even if Boyd knew the better call was to stay put, he wasn’t going to be the only one to hang back. 

Fuck. 

“It’s late,” he finally said. “We’ll talk in the morning.” 

Erica shut her magazine and stood, smoothing out her dress and flipping blonde curls over her shoulder before looking at Derek. “I noticed there’s only one guest room. I’m not sharing with Isaac.” 

“Yeah, I’m not sharing with her either,” Isaac informed him. Because they were literally fucking children and he _so_ didn’t have the energy for this right now. 

“You can—my bed’s a queen,” Stiles said, having them all turn to him. “I can change the sheets and someone can stay there.” 

“You’re not sleeping on the couch,” Derek informed him, because it was bad enough his stupid family was showing up without them kicking Stiles out of his room. 

“I was gonna bunk in dad’s bed,” Stiles said quietly. “Just—you know, for a bit.” 

Derek searched every inch of his face to be sure he was truly okay with this, then nodded a thanks. “You can go to bed, I’ll change the sheets.” 

“It’s fine, I can do it.” Stiles headed out of the kitchen, Derek watching him go and feeling like shit. He didn’t want to uproot everything in Stiles’ life right now, but he also didn’t want to leave him alone. He hadn’t expected his family to show up, though now he was thinking he probably should have. 

“So he’s cute,” Erica said, making Derek turn back to her. 

“I already called dibs,” Isaac informed her. 

“I have Boyd,” she reminded him with a sarcastic smile. “Besides, Derek saw him first.” 

Isaac shrugged, like that was of little consequence, but Derek cut him a threatening look and he raised both hands in surrender. When he was sure they weren’t going to start murdering each other—he really didn’t want to explain that to Stiles right now—Derek turned to head upstairs. 

Stiles had already stripped his bed, old sheets on the floor while he spread out a new set of fitted ones across the mattress. Derek moved to help him, tucking in the corners at the bottom while Stiles did the top. 

“Sorry,” he said. “They weren’t supposed to come.” 

“It’s fine,” Stiles insisted, eyes on what he was doing. “I don’t mind. Would’ve preferred if she’d shown up during regular hours, but I get why she didn’t.” 

“Yeah.” Derek finished up his side of the bed and Stiles grabbed another regular sheet, throwing one end at him so they could tuck the edges in. “William Barrow should be in custody by now.” 

“Parrish texted me,” Stiles said, which was what Derek had expected. “Word has it he was pretty roughed up when he was brought in.” 

“Lucky he wasn’t dead,” Derek muttered. 

“Thanks,” Stiles said quietly. “For—I don’t know. Not crossing a line, but still doing more than I know anyone else who wanted to could.” 

Derek nodded once. “Your dad wouldn’t have wanted him to die, but I wasn’t going to let him get off with a pair of handcuffs and a prison sentence. Not after what he did.” 

“Yeah.” Stiles crossed his arms over his chest and shifted his weight. “So. What now?”

“Now?”

“What are you gonna do? You did what you came to do, so are you just—are you leaving then?” 

Derek watched Stiles for a long while, inspecting every inch of him. He looked a little tense, and it occurred to Derek that as much as people called him, he really _was_ alone here. All his friends were probably away at university, and the adults he had around seemed to work demanding jobs. Aside from Parrish dropping by that one time, no one else had come to check in on him. 

Stiles probably figured he was going to be alone again. 

“Not yet,” he said. “I’d like to stick around for a while longer, if you’ll let me.” 

Even though he knew he shouldn’t. 

Even though he knew it was risky. 

He didn’t want to leave yet. Not yet. 

He wanted to spend more time with Stiles. 

Those words seemed to have him relax a little bit, his shoulders not as tight as they had been. “Yeah. Yeah, no that’s—sure. If you, I mean, it’s up to you. If you wanna stick around.” 

“I do,” Derek said. 

Stiles just nodded, pressing his lips together. He cleared his throat, then looked at the bed. “Um, blanket’ll have to get washed tomorrow, I don’t have a spare or anything.” 

“It’s fine, thank you.” Derek bent down to pull it up from the bottom of the bed, throwing it overtop the sheets. “If it’s okay with you, we’ll let Erica sleep here. I’ll stay with Isaac.” 

“Sure, yeah. Whatever works.” 

“Thanks Stiles.” 

“Yup.” He clapped his hands together. “Well, good night then.” 

Stiles headed for the bedroom door, then paused and turned back, moving to his nightstand. He bent down to unplug his phone charger, then took both it and the phone. When he started to leave again, Derek touched his arm lightly. 

“How come you never said anything?” 

“What do you mean?” Stiles frowned. 

“All that time. For _years_. I always—you were Mischief to me, to all of us. You never said that wasn’t your name. I would call, and I would say Mischief, and I’d use that name with your dad, and both of you just...” He trailed off, because he didn’t know what else to say. 

Stiles shrugged one shoulder. “It was how you knew me. It was who I was to you. And I kind of liked that I had one person left who called me that. No one’s really called me that since mom died, so it felt a little special, I guess. And with dad, I figure he wanted to make sure that if anything ever happened, I’d always know who Derek was because he’d call me Mischief.” He let out a small laugh. “Guess that kind of backfired, huh?” 

“It wouldn’t have if I’d stopped in here first,” Derek admitted. 

“How did you switch so easily? From Mischief to Stiles? You never slip up, even now.” 

“I’m really good with names,” Derek said.

Stiles eyed him for a few seconds, then seemed to decide he was too tired to argue this right now so he let it drop. Erica and Isaac had come up the stairs by then, which had probably helped. He wished them all good night and disappeared into his father’s room with his phone, shutting the door. Derek motioned Erica into Stiles’ room and she kissed Derek’s cheek while passing him before shutting the door as well, her bag in hand. 

Derek retreated to the guest room with Isaac, knowing that when the others showed up, they would be one spot short, and someone was _definitely_ going to end up on the couch.

Unfortunately for Isaac, it was probably going to be him.

* * *

Stiles was already awake when Derek got up the next day. Isaac and Erica slept later, likely because Erica had been awake for a lot longer, and Isaac was being lazy after their nightly excursion. Derek didn’t mind, he liked having time alone with Stiles. 

He came down to pancakes being made. He wasn’t big on sweet things first thing in the morning, but he ate them anyway, because Stiles had made them for him. They didn’t speak much during breakfast, Stiles seeming to be thinking and Derek more than happy to sit in comfortable silence with him. 

His eyes couldn’t stop inspecting every inch of Stiles’ face. He really was an attractive young man, but Derek couldn’t tell if it was because Stiles _was_ attractive, or if it was because he was addicted to his personality. After all, Derek had been calling him for years just to speak to him, so it was entirely possible the weird feelings he’d been having of late were just because he’d finally met his Mischief in person. 

“So, what’s next then?” Stiles asked, similar to the night before, but he elaborated before Derek could answer. “For you, I mean. You don’t seem like the type to just sit still. We can do some more digging into SilverCorp, if you want.” 

“That’s probably not a good idea,” he insisted. “We don’t want to throw up a neon flashing sign.” 

“Please, dad’s been looking into them for years and they’ve never found him. Besides, I know he was looking into some more stuff before he got shot, so he’s probably got some new information for you.” 

That piqued Derek’s interest and he set his coffee down. “Really? Where is it?” Derek had gone through John’s drawers that first morning and found nothing, but he also acknowledged it was entirely likely he’d hidden the files somewhere else. 

He ended up being right, because Stiles wiped his mouth with a napkin and stood, motioning for Derek to follow. They moved to a door near the back of the kitchen beside the entrance that connected the kitchen to the dining room. Derek hadn’t really explored much of the house, so he’d yet to enter whatever room lay behind that door and when Stiles opened it and turned on the light, Derek figured it had to lead to a basement. The steps were kind of rickety and wooden, but Stiles walked down them with ease so Derek followed. 

The basement was unfinished, and had a bunch of furniture piled up in one far corner. There were also a lot of boxes, most of them taped shut and covered in a layer of dust. He noticed Stiles was careful not to look at them, and assumed they held some of his mother’s things. 

Stiles walked towards the back of the basement and into another smaller room that had the boiler and an industrial sink, probably for hand-washing clothes. The washer/dryer had likely been in the basement originally before it’d been moved up to the closet-sized room off the kitchen. 

There were also a bunch of paintings leaning back against one of the walls, at least five of them, and Derek understood why when Stiles bent down to move them aside and revealed a high-tech looking safe that was imbedded in the wall. 

“Dad figured having one painting would look suspicious,” he said when he saw Derek staring at the five paintings he’d moved aside. “We didn’t have space to hang them in the house, so he uses them to cover the safe.” 

Derek bent down beside Stiles, who’d crouched in front of it, and made a face. It was a _really_ high-tech looking safe, it wouldn’t be easy to crack. 

“It’s gonna take some time to get into this,” he muttered. 

Stiles gave him a look, then reached out and punched in a series of numbers. The safe beeped once, the keypad turned green, and he pulled down on the handle, the door opening easily. 

“Mom’s birthday. Dad’s kind of predictable that way.” 

“Living with you must’ve been a challenge,” Derek informed him as Stiles reached into the safe to pull out a truly impressive amount of paperwork. 

“Yeah, I definitely didn’t make his life easy.” 

Stiles’ hands paused in pulling out some files and Derek glanced at his face. It was closed off, like he was trying to keep some of his emotions in check, and it made his chest clench. He hesitated before reaching out, placing one hand on Stiles’ shoulder. 

For a few seconds, Stiles said nothing. Then he turned to Derek, expression a bit more open, but sad. “What if he doesn’t make it?” 

“He will,” Derek promised. Even if he had to intervene to make it happen, John was not going to die in that hospital. Not when Derek knew that was likely where Claudia had died. “He knows you’re here waiting for him. He’s gonna be fine.” 

He hated saying that without knowing for certain, but he wasn’t going to let Stiles lose both parents at the age of twenty-one. Actually, he didn’t even know if Stiles _was_ twenty-one yet. He knew he would _be_ twenty-one this year, but he didn’t actually know when his birthday was. 

Now didn’t seem like the appropriate time to ask, so he just squeezed once, then pulled his hand away from Stiles’ shoulder and began to collect the files he’d pulled out. There were still tons more inside the safe, Stiles grabbing them all, and Derek frowned when he saw something glint in the corner. 

“What’s that?” 

“What?” Stiles asked, then followed his gaze. His expression closed off again. “Nothing,” he said quietly, but he reached in for it anyway. When he pulled it out, Derek saw it was a disc in a clear plastic case. 

In large sharpie across the front, it said ‘Stiles - You’ll know.’ 

Stiles stared down at it for a long while, thumb brushing against the surface of the plastic case, then he put it back into the safe, finished with the papers, and shut it. 

Derek kept his eyes on him while Stiles stacked everything up into two even piles so they could bring it all upstairs, but he didn’t say anything. 

“That has all your answers on it,” Derek said quietly. 

“I know it does,” Stiles whispered, avoiding his eye. “And I’ve wanted to watch it. A million times. But I know that if I watch it, it means that dad’s gone, and I can’t—I don’t want to jinx it. I can wait for my answers. I can wait forever for my answers, as long as dad is okay.” 

Derek watched him until Stiles seemed satisfied with the piles, then shoved one over to Derek. He stood and moved the paintings back in front of the safe once more, even though it was virtually empty now barring the disc, but it was probably more habit than anything else. Once that was done, he grabbed his pile of paperwork, so Derek followed suit and they headed back upstairs. Stiles dropped his stack off in the dining room, because the long table would make it easier for them to spread everything out. When Stiles took a seat in one of the spots along the side instead of at the head of the table, Derek moved to sit across from him, the two of them beginning to spread the files out. 

“You read any of this stuff?” Derek asked him.

“Not really,” Stiles admitted. “I knew dad was looking into this for you, but none of it ever made any sense to me so I kind of stopped bothering after a while.” He flipped open a file that had a picture attached and Derek did a double-take. 

“Can I see that?” 

Stiles slid it over to him and Derek picked it up, flipping the picture up and scowling at the name before looking at the digital image more clearly. She was older, with a different haircut and sharper features, but it was definitely her. 

She was the woman from the airport in Croatia back in 2004. 

He’d thought she looked like someone with money back then, and it explained why when he saw what her name was. Katherine “Kate” Argent. So she was Gerard Argent’s relative. 

“That’s the CEO’s daughter,” Stiles said, flipping through a few more files and then sliding another one across the table to Derek. “This is his son. I’m pretty sure he’s dad’s contact.” 

Derek glanced up at him, then back down, pulling the new file closer. The man in the picture looked hardened, and older than the date of birth suggested. Christopher “Chris” Argent. 

“How do you know?” 

“Dad didn’t send me outside for _all_ his calls,” Stiles said, a small smile on his lips. “Chris Argent never called us, though. Dad always called him. They had a set time every couple of weeks to chat. Probably knows something happened to dad since he hasn’t called in a while.” Stiles flipped through a few more files, like he was looking for something. “He started helping dad near the end of 2010, his daughter had leukemia or something but his dad had already been diagnosed with cancer and was hoarding the miracle cure they’d found for himself, so she ended up dying.” 

Derek hated hearing that, because Gerard Argent was truly a selfish man if that was true. Allowing his granddaughter to die, just so that he could live. 

Stiles seemed to have found what he was looking for because he pushed another file over, Derek taking it. His heart broke a little at the picture of a girl who had to be around eleven or twelve lying in a hospital bed with a respirator. It said her name was Allison Argent, and it showed she’d died in 2010. Chris had probably decided to help John when his father turned his back on him. 

“How did they meet?” Derek asked, reading over the little girl’s file, wondering if this was someone maybe they could’ve saved. But they really weren’t Gods, and he wasn’t in a position to decide who lived and who died. 

Stiles shrugged, leaning forward on the table with his arms crossed on the wooden surface. “Not sure, honestly. Never seen the guy in BH, and Dad doesn’t really leave town very often except to go to neighbouring counties. I know he had to go to Vegas a while back to testify on a case. Some guy killed a bunch of people all along the coast, including here, and they finally caught him in Las Vegas. SilverCorp’s headquarters are in Massachusetts, so unless there was crossover in Vegas somehow, that’s basically the only thing I know.” 

Derek had to wonder how the relationship had formed between the two men. Maybe it _had_ been while in Vegas. Maybe John had gone to grab a drink somewhere, started chatting with the man beside him at the bar, found out he worked for SilverCorp. Maybe they’d stayed in touch, with John working on getting information from him in a non-obvious way, and once Chris Argent’s daughter had died, he’d touched base asking if John wanted help taking down the company. 

“What’s your deal with SilverCorp anyway?” Stiles asked, leaning back and off the table so he could shuffle through a few more files. Most appeared to relate to personnel, some with pictures and pages of details, others with only one sheet of paper. “They steal your ideas or something?” 

“Or something,” Derek muttered just as Erica walked into the dining room. She’d gotten dressed to the nines again, wearing a skin-tight red dress today with black pumps and vibrant make-up. Her hair was straight instead of curled today, but she still looked like she could knock a man unconscious just by staring at them. 

She was truly stunning, it was a shame she didn’t often get to play up her appearance. Derek knew she liked dressing up because it made Boyd go mute. They’d been together for two-hundred years, and she could still take his breath away just by winking at him. 

“What’s all this?” Erica asked, moving up beside Derek and wrapping an arm around his shoulders so she could lean into him. “Hey, isn’t that the woman from—”

“Yes,” Derek interrupted, not wanting her to say the year. Or the place. Stiles was very good at math, as Derek had already discovered, and he didn’t want to give him any more hints. 

“Subtle,” Stiles said sarcastically, pulling another file closer, even though Derek knew he had no idea what they were even looking for. 

Erica was still leaning against Derek, but her eyes were on Stiles now. She glanced at Derek out of the corner of her heavily made-up eye and said in French, _“He doesn’t know?”_

“Nope,” Stiles informed her in English, flipping through a random file. “He doesn’t know. Want to enlighten him?” 

Derek sighed at that, because it confirmed Stiles still knew enough French to understand them if they spoke it. Erica’s eyebrows had shot up at his response before looking at Derek again. “He speaks French.” 

“Yeah,” Derek muttered, somewhat annoyed. “I’m going to need to make sure everyone knows that first thing.” He watched Stiles while the other man flipped through pages of the file he had open in front of him, not believing for a second that he wasn’t paying attention. “I’m pretty sure he also speaks Spanish, so we should probably stick to the Slavic countries.” 

Erica nodded her understanding, but even as she did, something occurred to Derek. Stiles’ real name was Mieczyslaw, which was Polish in origin, and he didn’t miss the way Stiles very discreetly smiled ever so slightly when Derek had said that. 

It was entirely possible he knew more than just the other two languages. Probably not _well_ , but if he knew any of them well _enough_ , he would be able to eavesdrop more easily. Derek wished Isaac and Erica were better at Latin, because that was one language barely anyone ever studied anymore. 

“Actually, Indonesian and Thai are probably best,” Derek amended, Stiles looking up at him and smiling impishly, suggesting he was impressed Derek had noticed. “His real name is Polish, so he might know some Polish.” 

“Huh.” Erica’s eyes were back on Stiles, though she was starting to lean a _little_ too much weight against Derek. “You’re an interesting little man,” she informed him.

Stiles gave her a weird look. “I’m pretty sure I’m older than you are.” 

A loud bark of a laugh escaped Erica at that, the woman leaning forward and slapping one hand against the table. Derek sighed internally at that reaction, but he could see why she would find it amusing. “Funny. You’re hilarious. Food?” she asked Derek, turning to him. 

“Stiles made pancakes.” 

“You hate pancakes,” she said in response. 

“You hate pancakes?” Stiles demanded, sounding horrified. 

“I don’t _hate_ pancakes. They’re fine, I just don’t really like sweet things first thing in the morning.” He elbowed at Erica. “Go get some food. And wake up Isaac, we have a lot more reading to do than I originally thought.” 

“It’s funny you think I’d _willingly_ go anywhere Isaac is,” she informed him while heading into the kitchen through the connecting door. 

Derek just sighed, already missing how peaceful things had been back when it was just him and Stiles. 

“So what even are we looking for?” Stiles asked, still flipping aimlessly through the files. “Like, what am I doing?” 

“Honestly, I’m not even sure anymore,” Derek admitted. What he really wanted to know was how to get rid of SilverCorp, get them off his and his family’s backs, but he didn’t know how to _do_ that without killing people. He didn’t want to do that, not everyone in that place was like Gerard Argent. He just had no other plans. “Finding a way to ruin Argent would be beneficial.” 

“Yeah, that’s not really how it works with pharmaceutical companies,” Stiles muttered, flipping through another personnel file. “They tend to be hard to get rid of once they’re up and running, especially when they’ve apparently got all these miracle drugs that cure, I don’t even know, fucking acne or whatever.” 

Derek couldn’t help huffing out a laugh at that, but he just read through all the files in front of him belonging to the two Argent children and Allison. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for, but he’d know it when he found it. 

Erica came back with pancakes and took a seat beside Stiles, pulling another random file over. Isaac emerged about an hour later, whining about cold food and shitty company, but he sat down anyway and mostly read over Stiles’ shoulder since he’d situated himself at the head of the table. 

They didn’t really do much more that day, stopping their research only long enough to eat lunch and dinner. After six, Derek told them all to stop for the night. He didn’t care if Isaac and Erica kept it up, since this directly affected them, but he didn’t want Stiles wasting his time researching something like this that was just a waste of his very limited time on the planet. 

Not that watching TV was necessarily better, but at least Stiles found some entertainment out of it. They headed to bed around eleven, Stiles calling goodnight to them all before disappearing into his dad’s room. 

Derek heard him leave the room again around one in the morning, and when he went downstairs to check on him, he found Stiles sitting with his back to the door in the dining room, pulling files over and taking notes in a notebook. He didn’t know what he was doing, but it was clear he wanted to be left alone, so he let him be. 

He didn’t hear Stiles come back upstairs to bed. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Tags/Warnings:  
> \- Derek and Isaac rough up the guy who shot the sheriff. It's not depicted, just mentioned. Derek is not a bit dark in this fic.  
> \- Allison's death is mentioned. Obviously not as violent as in the show though. 
> 
> Obligatory Copyright Shit:  
> \- Teen Wolf (c) Jeff Davis  
> \- The Old Guard (c) Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernández


	4. 'Cause We Could be Immortals

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional tags/warnings at the end of the chapter. 
> 
> Just FYI to anyone who hasn't seen Netflix's _Project Power_ , if you're interested in it, this chapter has a slight spoiler about it.

Derek was in the kitchen washing their lunch dishes when the doorbell rang. Erica, Isaac and Stiles were in the dining room again, but when he heard a chair scrape, he knew it had to be Stiles’. He knew without really knowing why that the others wanted to stay out of sight, and while no one had shown up barring Parrish—and his family—since he’d shown up, Derek was glad that Stiles was trying his best to keep them hidden. 

When he heard the lock turn and the door open, Stiles’ next words had him sigh and brace his hands against the counter in defeat. 

“Let me guess. Angry Japanese lady.” 

“Mischief.”

“It’s Stiles, actually. Come on in. He’s in the kitchen if you wanna yell at him in person.” 

Derek was going to make him pay for that comment later. For now, he just listened when the front door slammed and footsteps headed in his direction. Stiles’ veered off towards the dining room, going in through the other entrance, and then boots clomped across the hard linoleum of the kitchen. 

“He speaks French, by the way,” Derek said immediately. “And possibly Spanish and Polish.” 

“Doubt he speaks Japanese,” Kira said from behind him. 

“Yeah.” He turned around with a sigh, crossing his arms and leaning back against the counter. “Thought I told you to stay put.” 

“I knew Isaac would come,” Kira explained. “And if Isaac came, Erica would follow in hopes that it would bring Boyd. If the others were all coming, I saw no reason to stay away.” 

“You called Boyd today?” Derek asked, since it was Monday and it was the scheduled day for him to be called. 

“Before my flight. He’s on his way.” 

“Of course he is.” Derek was so tired. All he wanted was to go somewhere and live out his life in peace with his family. Instead, they were all coming here, and he was painting a target on Stiles’ back. On John’s back. It wasn’t fair, and a part of him wanted to pick up and leave again right away as soon as Boyd showed up, but he wasn’t ready to leave. 

He didn’t want Stiles to be left alone again. 

_“How’s John?”_ Kira asked in Japanese.

_“Alive. For how long is difficult to say. Four shots, two in the chest, one in the stomach, one in the head.”_

Kira let out a slow breath, then turned towards the connecting door that led to the dining room. 

_“And him? How is he?”_

Honestly, Derek had no _fucking_ idea. Stiles was very good at keeping everything locked down. It came out every now and then, like that first day, and when he’d been asking to help find the man who shot his father, and when he’d been pulling files out of the safe. It came out, but for the most part he was like a locked safe himself. He acted like he was fine, like nothing was affecting him, like none of what was happening was bothering him in the lightest, but Derek knew it was. That it had to be. 

Death was a lot more permanent for everyone else. 

_“He’s cute,”_ Kira offered when Derek was silent for too long. 

“Thank you!” Stiles called from the next room. 

Derek whipped around, pushing away from the counter. “You can’t _honestly_ tell me you know Japanese, too!” Seriously, did this kid have _nothing_ better to do with his time? 

“I watch anime,” Stiles called back. “I know what _kawaii_ means.” 

“She wasn’t talking about you,” Derek insisted. 

“If that was true, you wouldn’t have reacted to my ‘thank you,’ so nice try.” 

Derek was getting tired of falling for all of Stiles’ traps. Any conversation that happened in front of him was like walking through a fucking minefield. 

When he turned back to Kira, she had her eyebrows raised in inquiry and Derek sighed before admitting, “He’s frustratingly smart.” 

“Best news I’ve heard in a while. Being stuck with Erica and Isaac is likely going to diminish our own intelligence,” Kira informed him, moving to the other door. Neither of the two in question said anything, because they were used to Kira being cranky.

She often was. She was Kira. 

Derek finished up with the dishes and went back to the dining room. Kira had taken his usual spot across from Stiles, so he took the one beside her, though he honestly wished he still had him across from him. 

“This is a lot of information,” Kira said, having pulled a few files over. 

“Yup,” Stiles offered, writing something down in his notebook again. “Sure wish I knew what we were looking for.” 

“None of us know what we’re looking for,” Kira said bitterly, flipping through pages of the file she’d opened. 

“See, that’s probably the first and only thing any of you have said to me that I actually believe about this whole thing,” Stiles said, looking up at her. 

“I said that yesterday,” Derek argued. 

“Yeah, but you’re clearly a pathological liar, so I believe very little that comes out of your mouth.” 

“I’m not a pathological liar,” Derek sighed. 

“Really?” Stiles looked over at him, folded his hands together, then turned a bright smile on Kira and asked, “What year was he born in?” 

Kira stared at Stiles for a few seconds, then glanced at Derek. They all knew what was on his driver’s license, because they all had the same year written down. But Kira was smart enough to know this was a trap, and that Stiles wouldn’t have asked about the year if Derek hadn’t told him something different than 1978. 

On top of that, Derek _still_ didn’t look forty-two years old. He didn’t even look _thirty-two_ years old, which was what he’d lied and told Stiles. 

When Kira stayed silent for too long, turning her attention back to Stiles, said individual turned to look at Derek, expression clearly asking if he would like to continue arguing about his constant lies. 

_“You were right,”_ Kira said in Japanese, eyes still on Stiles. _“He **is** frustratingly smart.”_

“Yeah,” Derek muttered in English. “It’s already gotten old.” 

“I have no idea what you said, but I’ll take it as a compliment.” Stiles offered them both a winning smile and went back to the file he was looking through before taking notes again. 

“What are you writing down, anyway?” Derek asked, mostly to try and move the conversation back to safer territory. 

He’d already kind of figured out that Stiles was going to realize the truth any day now, and he was likely going to have to tell him soon. He didn’t _want_ to, but he wasn’t going to have a choice at the rate things were going.

“Trying to figure out the compounds of their magical drug,” Stiles muttered, finishing with his sentence before looking over at Derek. “All this stuff that dad managed to get from Chris Argent keeps referring to ‘The Five,’ which suggests they’re using a mixture of five different compounds to create it.” 

Derek was extremely glad that nobody looked at each other, because Stiles would have known immediately that _they_ knew that The Five was. Which they did, since it was _them_. As it was, Isaac was still flipping through the file he had open, Erica was pretending to be interested in what Stiles was saying, and Kira was looking down at the notebook Stiles had beside him. Derek kept eye contact with Stiles, not giving anything away. 

“Find anything useful yet?” he asked. 

“Not really.” He shrugged. “Given they’ve made it clear one of the compounds is hard to come by, hence their inability to mass produce the drug in recent years, or like, _ever_ , I’m assuming it’s probably something unnatural. Like, I don’t know, some kind of space rock or a deep sea dwelling fish’s insides.” He looked back down at his notebook. “Or someone’s blood or something.” 

Kira’s eyes shot to Derek then, and he made sure not to look back at her, which turned out to be a good thing, because Stiles looked over at him again. 

“Have you guys seen _Project Power_? It’s on Netflix. Good movie.” 

“We’ll have to check it out,” Derek said, even though he _had_ already seen it. Explained why Stiles’ brain had gone in that direction. 

“Anyway, dad seems to have been really looking into that aspect of the company, so I figure there’s something there to find.” Stiles shrugged, flipping another page. “Just trying to put the pieces together, I guess.” 

“Yeah,” Derek said. 

He was fairly certain Stiles wasn’t going to take very long putting said pieces together. 

* * *

When the doorbell rang at half-past ten that evening, Derek knew even before Stiles opened the door that it would be Boyd. Kira had already confirmed he was on his way, and timing-wise, it seemed about right. 

So when Stiles went to open the door, Derek just followed. Sure enough, when he pulled it open, Boyd was standing on the porch with a duffel in one hand and two of his swords strapped to his back. 

“Hello Mischief. It’s nice to meet you.” 

“You too, apparently.” Stiles turned to look at Derek, eyebrows raised. “How many of your friends know me?” 

“All of them,” he said honestly, motioning for Boyd to come in before someone saw him. “And he goes by Stiles now.” 

Boyd nodded his understanding while stepping into the house. Stiles had to back up into Derek to allow it, and while he knew he could move aside so that Stiles had more space, he didn’t. He let Stiles just push back into him so that Boyd could walk in and shut the door. 

Once he’d locked it, he turned to look at Derek, almost in apology. “I knew they were coming. It seemed pointless to stay behind on my own.” 

“I know,” Derek said with a sigh. “But this is kind of what I wanted to avoid.” 

“We’re stronger together anyway,” Boyd argued.

He wasn’t wrong, they were just also much easier targets. 

When they moved back into the living room, Erica came out of the dining room, smiling from ear to ear while half-leaping towards Boyd and jumping at him. He wrapped his arms around her tightly, burying his face in her hair and closing his eyes, holding her tightly. 

“Missed you,” she whispered. 

“Me too,” he admitted quietly. “It’s been hard.” 

“You took your time getting here,” she insisted, pulling away and kissing him. Derek was grateful it was just a regular peck as opposed to one of their usual deep and passionate ones. Stiles didn’t need to see that. 

“Take it they’re dating,” Stiles said from beside Derek, motioning the pair of them. 

“Yeah. Stiles, Boyd. Boyd, Stiles.” 

“Outgrew Mischief?” Boyd asked. He was still holding Erica against him, but more in a way that suggested he didn’t want to let her go just yet. It had been a long six years, Derek was sure. Considering the two of them had never been apart before, he knew they just wanted to be in each other’s space again. 

“Yeah, well.” Stiles waved one hand. “Not smart to advertise the kind of person you are.” 

Boyd smiled slightly at that, and it occurred to Derek that Stiles kind of fit in well with them. He was smart, which automatically earned him points with Kira. He was kind of an asshole, which meant Isaac liked him. He and Erica seemed to get along in general, and Derek already knew he had a good relationship with him. Seeing the easy banter with Boyd, as short as it had been, made him feel like Stiles was someone they could all really connect with in some way. 

The bad thing about that was that his eventual demise was going to hurt twice as much. Before it was only Derek who’d be affected. Now they were all going to suffer if they got close to him. 

“So.” Stiles said, clapping his hands together and turning to Derek. “Am I going to be getting any _more_ unexpected guests? Because I’m kind of running out of bed space.” 

“No,” Boyd informed him before Derek could say anything. “It’s just the five of us.” 

Stiles nodded in understanding, and then froze. And the second he did, Derek knew what he was going to say next. He could see the _moment_ all the pieces fit together in Stiles’ head, eyes widening and expression brightening somehow, like he’d just discovered all the answers of the universe. 

He turned slowly to look at Derek, who just stared back at him in defeat. “Why does SilverCorp want you?” 

It was exactly what he figured Stiles would ask. Because of _course_ Stiles would piece it all together. Because he was just too fucking smart for his own God damn good. Couldn’t he just wait his own stupid turn? It wasn’t his _time_ yet, he wasn’t supposed to _know_! 

“What?” Boyd asked, likely to try for damage control, though it was _far_ too late. 

Stiles turned to look at him, then swept one hand across Derek and his family. “All the notes I keep finding, that I was looking into for _hours_ last night, and all day today. Everything about their miracle drug always references The Five. I thought it was different compounds, or even just what a new element they’d found was called, but you just said... you said there are _five_ of you.” He glanced at Derek. “And you’ve been looking into SilverCorp for-for _years_. So if there’s five of you, who are all cagey and secretive and don’t like being noticed by people, and SilverCorp is running low on materials or whatever from The Five, then that means that ‘The Five’ is _you_.” 

Boyd stared at Stiles for an exceptionally long time before lifting his gaze to Derek. He didn’t look any less defeated than he had a second ago. “Yeah,” he said in answer to Boyd’s unasked question. “He’s annoyingly smart. Unfortunately.” 

“What the _fuck_ is going on?” Stiles demanded, moving back and step and looking at them all in turn. “Why is SilverCorp coming after you? And how do you guys tie into that miracle drug? I mean, what I said before about _Project Power_ was a joke, right? Like, SilverCorp isn’t coming after you for your blood, right?” 

When no one said anything, Stiles let out a loud exhale, puffing his cheeks out and sliding both hands through his hair before clasping them behind his head. “Okay. Not sure what I was expecting, but wasn’t really that.”

 _“We might as well tell him,”_ Kira said softly in Japanese, Derek turning to her. _“He already knows enough. He’s going to find out, it might be best if it comes from you.”_

He hated that she was right, because he’d wanted more time. Just a bit more time with Stiles, where he was _normal_. Where Stiles didn’t look at him like he was either a freak or a God. Just... keeping their relationship how it was. 

But Kira was right. They were out of time, Stiles had already basically guessed it was something Supernatural, and Derek would rather tell him than have him find out on his own. He just wished he didn’t have to. 

Sighing, he turned back to Stiles, who still looked like his mind had been blown by this revelation, and wished things had been different. He wished he’d been normal, met Stiles differently, had made an effort to have more _time_ with him, at least before this came out. He’d never had someone like Stiles in his life before, and he was already lamenting the loss of this unique relationship. 

“Guess my time’s up,” Derek said quietly, Stiles’ gaze snapping back to him. “I was hoping I could keep this for a bit longer, but looks like you’re too smart for your own good.” 

“That sounds ominous,” Stiles said worriedly, hands still clasped together behind his head. “I feel like I should be running. Should I be running?” 

“No Stiles.” Derek rolled his eyes. “You just won, is all. Time to lay it all out for you.” 

Stiles eyed him suspiciously, like he wasn’t sure if he believed him, but Derek just motioned for him to sit. When he moved to do so, Boyd held one hand out to stop him.

“Perhaps somewhere with less windows,” Boyd suggested, eyes shifting to Kira pointedly. “Just in case.” 

“Why can’t we have windows?” Stiles asked, hands finally dropping and gaze shifting between Derek and Boyd. “Seriously, you guys are giving me massive serial killer vibes right now.” 

“We’re not going to kill _you_ ,” Kira insisted, rolling her eyes. 

“I don’t wanna get maimed, either,” Stiles argued, missing the emphasis of her last word, but when Kira moved to grab his arm and drag him towards the kitchen, he followed along obediently. “Ow, you have a _very_ tight grip. Do you have a special hand exercise you do for those hand muscles?” 

“He’s a character,” Boyd said, having shifted to wrap one arm around Erica’s shoulders, pulling her into his side. 

“Yeah.” Derek glanced at him briefly before following the other two. “Let’s hope he keeps some of that spark once we’ve finished this conversation.” 

Kira had always been good at scoping a place out the moment she entered it, so Derek wasn’t surprised to find the basement door open when he walked into the kitchen, Stiles’ insistent noises of pain at her grip floating back up the stairs. He moved down the steps slowly, the other three trailing behind him, with the door being shut behind the last of them.

Considering someone had had the forethought to close the door, he was going to assume the last to enter the basement was Boyd. 

When he reached the bottom of the stairs, Kira had dragged Stiles over to the far end where all the furniture was piled up. She pushed him down onto a couch that had definitely seen better days, and a cloud of dust flew upwards, making Stiles cough and wave one hand in front of his face before he sneezed three times in succession. 

“Was that necessary?” he asked her, one hand covering his nose and mouth, as if to stave off any further sneezes. 

Kira pulled out an old dining room chair that looked like it belonged to the set upstairs—it was probably an extra, or the table had additional middle pieces that allowed it to extend, thus requiring more chairs—and fell down into it. She was looking at Derek, and motioned Stiles with one hand, telling him to go for it. 

Derek sighed, Boyd and Erica moving to sit on another part of the mass of discarded furniture while Isaac leaned back against one of the support pillars a little to Kira’s left, crossing his arms. 

Stiles looked around at them slowly, then focussed on Derek, bringing his hand away from his nose and mouth. 

“So, uh... Boss?” 

Of course Stiles remembered that Isaac had called him that. Because Stiles was intolerably smart.

“When you said all those things that first day,” Derek said, not even sure how to start a conversation like this, “about how nothing really made sense, and you thought something Supernatural was going on, you weren’t exactly wrong.” 

Stiles very slowly reached up with both hands and covered his neck as best he could before whispering, “Are you Vampires?” 

“What? No.” Derek couldn’t help the small laugh of disbelief that slid up his throat, crossing his arms defensively over his chest. It didn’t matter that he was thousands of years old, or that he was bigger and stronger than Stiles was. Somehow, he was pretty sure once this conversation was over, Stiles was going to be able to crush him like a bug, and he hated that feeling. 

“Didn’t you say he was smart?” Boyd asked. 

“Hey,” Stiles insisted, turning to him with a glare but not removing his hands from his neck. “Vampires is a perfectly logical guess in this case. And he _said_ I was right on the Supernatural front. Vampires are Supernatural.” 

“He said you weren’t _wrong_ ,” Boyd corrected. “Not that you were _right_.” 

“Well, the opposite of wrong _is_ right, so...” Stiles gave him a look, but turned back to Derek relatively quickly, as if realizing he was delaying his own answers. 

“We’re not Vampires,” Derek said, then let out a small sigh before admitting, “we’re immortal.” 

Stiles stared at him for a long while, saying nothing. It was actually kind of uncomfortable and Derek shifted his weight from foot to foot, waiting for him to say something. 

_Anything_.

But he just sat there staring at him, hands still covering his neck like an idiot, and squinting suspiciously at him, like he was being lied to. 

“No,” Stiles finally said. “No you’re not.” 

“Yes we are.” 

“Look, Vampires—for some reason—seems like a possibility. You know, human gets bitten by a bat, gets some weird sort of disease, whatever. But immortality?” Stiles gave him an unimpressed look. “People have been searching for the secret behind immortality for centuries, and if it was one of those things that was possible, you bet your ass all the rich fucks in the world would—holy shit!” 

Stiles cut himself off with two shouted words and jerked to his feet when Kira pulled a gun out and shot Isaac in the head. He fell to the ground like a sack of potatoes, eyes open and glassy, and Stiles had exactly two seconds to lose his mind and start shouting curses when the bullet pushed itself out of Isaac’s forehead, his eyes cleared, he inhaled sharply, and he jerked upright. 

That elicited a rather impressive scream from Stiles’ throat. 

“Ow!” Isaac shouted at Kira, wiping at the blood residue on his skin while getting to his feet. “What the _fuck_ , Kira?! What the hell was—”

“You _know_ what that was for,” she shot back, pointing the gun at him emphatically. “Don’t make me shoot you again.” 

Isaac scowled at her angrily, still wiping at the blood on his forehead before checking the back of his head, as if for a through-shot. Derek was glad Kira had shot in that direction, because if she’d gone for Boyd or Erica, and the bullet _had_ gone right through either of them, it might have hurt Stiles. 

Stiles, who was on his feet with his mouth hanging open, his eyes wide, and looking like all the blood had drained right out of his entire body. His mouth opened and shut a few times, like he was trying to say something, then gave up and he just covered it with one hand, gaze shifting between Kira and Isaac like he was trying to figure out what crazy illusion he’d just witnessed. 

“I was going to go with something a _little_ less dramatic,” Derek said with a sigh, Stiles’ gaze shooting back to him. “But that works, too.” 

When Derek moved forward, Stiles scrambled back, tripping over the edge of the couch and falling onto it. That reaction kind of stung, but Derek forced himself not to let it bother him and held a hand out to Boyd. He reached back for one of his swords and pulled it from its sheath, flipping it once so he was holding the blade, hilt extended to Derek. 

Taking the weapon, Derek took a slow, cautious step towards Stiles, lifted one arm up, and then used the blade to slice a long line down his exposed forearm. He winced at the feel of metal slicing into his flesh, but watched Stiles as his eyes locked onto the wound when it formed, and then slowly healed, leaving behind nothing but smooth skin, the blood the only indicator that there had been an injury there at all. 

“Holy shit,” Stiles breathed, eyes snapping back up to Derek’s face, then to his arm again. “Holy _shit_.” 

“Derek was the first,” Boyd said quietly, Stiles turning to look at him. “I was second. We picked up Kira, Isaac and Erica after that.”

“How...?” Stiles looked like he had a million questions, but didn’t even know how to string together a sentence. 

Derek handed Boyd his sword back, then moved slowly, as if worried about spooking a wild animal, and took a seat on the rickety couch beside Stiles. 

He didn’t tell him everything, because Stiles didn’t need to _know_ everything. He just explained that he didn’t know how it happened, none of them did. He’d died when he was twenty-five, and had woken up again. He didn’t tell him what year it was, because that didn’t matter. Just that he’d been alone at first, and then had dreamt of Boyd dying. When he’d found him, they’d travelled together until they’d dreamt of a woman dying, and found Kira. 

Every time a new one of them was created, the existing ones found out about it when they went to sleep. They didn’t know why. They didn’t know how it happened. They didn’t know why _they_ had been chosen. It wasn’t something they’d asked for, or that they could control. They were immortal, it was all they knew. 

Derek explained how the Stilinkis came into the picture, telling Stiles he really _had_ known his great-grandfather. That he’d been a good man, and Derek had been sad when he’d passed. But then Elias had come forward and offered to continue on the tradition, help them as best he could, keep their secret safe. And when Alzheimer’s had started to take hold, he’d told his son John, who’d taken up the mantle. 

And when John couldn’t help them anymore, that burden would have eventually fallen on Stiles. If he wanted it. 

Stiles had shifted his gaze to look down at the floor at some point during the explanation, and Derek could see his mind going a mile a minute. He knew what he was thinking, because it was honestly what anyone would be thinking. It was what he knew Elias had been thinking after his father had died. What John had probably been thinking when his wife died. 

What Stiles was now thinking after losing his mother, and having his father lying in a hospital room. 

He expected Stiles to ask, “Why can’t you share it? Why can’t you give it to my dad? Why can’t you save more people?” 

He expected him to be angry, to demand to know why they hadn’t been there when his mother had been sick. Why they hadn’t immediately helped save his father instead of letting him lie in a hospital bed. Why they were being _selfish_ and keeping this immortality of theirs all to themselves. 

He waited for the relationship he had with him to crack and splinter and turn sour. 

But like all the Stilinski men, like every single one who’d come before him, Stiles managed to surprise Derek in what his first words were. 

“I’m sorry.” 

Derek blinked at him, and turned to glance at Boyd. His eyebrows were raised and Erica looked startled beside him. That wasn’t what he’d expected to hear after this big reveal and he turned back to Stiles, confused. 

“Why are you sorry?” 

“Because...” Stiles trailed off, eyes still on the ground, and licked his lips. “I guess because you guys are alone. You’re always going to be alone. Everyone you know and love is gone, and everyone you ever meet and befriend is also eventually going to be—gone.” The hitch in his breath before his last word suggested Stiles had just recognized his own mortality, and he shifted his gaze to look at Derek. Like he’d just realized how much this friendship with Derek was costing him. 

How much it was going to hurt when Stiles eventually died, and Derek was forced to continue on whether he wanted to or not. 

“We don’t really have anyone else,” Isaac admitted quietly from his spot by the support beam. “It’s only ever been the five of us. Harrison Stilinski was the first mortal person we ever really told, but even he was closer to Derek than anyone else.” 

“And Derek has never been closer to any mortal person than you,” Kira said softly. 

Stiles let out a harsh exhale, looking at the ground again and ran one hand across his nose before laughing uncomfortably. “Wow. That’s uh... heavy.” He swallowed hard. “So you guys have just... what? You just wander through the times? What do you do? What do people who can never die do with all that time?” 

“Protect others,” Boyd said with a shrug. “Or try. We take jobs, go after criminals. Drug lords, human traffickers, things like that. We used to fight in some of the wars, but we’ve kind of stepped back from that.” 

“The age of technology has made life more complicated for us,” Derek admitted. “It’s hard to go unnoticed when everyone’s holding a camera in their hand.” 

Stiles nodded slowly, eyes still a mile away, then he said, “That’s why you have so much money. Because you’ve been amassing funds for hundreds of years.” 

“Yeah,” Derek said, choosing not to correct him on the amount of time. 

“So... so what’s your name then?” Stiles asked, looking at him again. “Your _real_ name.” 

Derek sighed softly through his nose, then said, “Theodoros of Halki.”

And Stiles, again, surprised him by asking, “Where the fuck does ‘Derek Hale’ come from?” 

He couldn’t help it. Derek laughed. It was the most ridiculous question he could’ve been asked, and yet it was the one Stiles chose to voice. “I’ve had many names in my life since my first. Before it was a problem, I kept Theodoros for a long time. But as names needed to be changed, I tried to keep to my original name. Derek derives from Dietrik, which derives from Theodoric, which itself derives from my name. With the last names, I just try and find things that are close to Halki in some form and go from there. The name I had before Derek Hale was Dietrik Halks.” 

“Huh,” Stiles said, shifting his gaze to Boyd. “And you? What’s your current name? Since I only got ‘Boyd.’” 

“Vernon Boyd,” he said, one hand rubbing up and down Erica’s back. Boyd also went through the history of his name, having kept his first name close to his nickname of ‘vanquisher,’ recently anglicized under ‘Vernon,’ and last name as something close to ‘son of’ or ‘boy,’ which was more akin to his true birth name. 

Erica, Kira and Isaac went through their own names, everyone recognizing that Stiles was using this information to try and come to terms with what he’d just been told. Derek was positive this was something he was going to have a panic attack over later, because how many people could honestly say they saw someone get shot in the head, only for them to pop back up and yell at the person who’d shot them. 

It was like something out of a movie. One of those things people always spoke about as being ‘so cool’ in theory, but Derek could honestly say it was less so in practice. 

Stiles asked a few questions about what they’d been doing, how many languages they spoke, how many countries they’d been to, all that stuff. He didn’t touch on SilverCorp, likely deciding that was a discussion for tomorrow since it was already quite late, and he didn’t ask any specific questions about when they’d first died, like that was too personal. 

Eventually, when he’d run out of things to ask, Derek had to say something about his father. It was weighing on him heavily, and he knew Stiles wasn’t asking because he was too good a person, but he couldn’t let it sit there unspoken. 

“Stiles,” he said carefully. “What we are... We don’t know how it happened. We don’t know how to–how to replicate it. I just—with your father, I—”

“I know,” Stiles cut off, looking at Derek and nodding once in understanding before averting his gaze. “I know. If you could do something, if you knew how or what to do, you’d do it. The fact that you haven’t isn’t because you don’t want to, but because you don’t know what it’ll do if you try. I get it.” 

Derek hadn’t realized how heavy that weight was until it was lifted from his shoulders. He was sure a part of Stiles resented them all, at least a little bit. But they hadn’t asked for this, and they didn’t wish this fate on anyone else. 

“You’re a good person, Stiles,” Boyd told him sincerely. 

Stiles just shrugged, playing with the cuticles around his thumb to avoid looking at them. “Not really. Just a smart one. If you could do something, you would. I know that.” 

“This is not a life any of us asked for,” Derek admitted quietly, Stiles tilting his head in his direction but not turning to look at him. “I know everyone says they want to live forever, but take it from those of us who have no say in the matter: it isn’t everything people think it is.” 

“Yeah,” Stiles whispered, nodding. “Yeah, no, I believe it. I mean, you guys don’t look like you have the best life, constantly moving around, hiding yourselves from people, not to mention SilverCorp is after you something fierce right now.” 

“A bit of a new experience for us,” Boyd offered, still rubbing at Erica’s back. She seemed to be falling asleep now that she was back with him, and testament to how safe she felt with Stiles, she seemed perfectly fine passing out in his basement right now. 

“I’ll bet. I’m sorry.” 

“Not your fault,” Boyd said with a shrug. “No one’s fault. We’re just not interested in being lab rats.”

“Don’t really blame you.” Stiles sighed and then slapped his hands on his thighs, like he was calling an end to the discussion. “So,” he turned to Derek, “immortal, huh?”

“Immortal,” he agreed. 

“Thanks for telling me.”

“I’m sorry we can’t do more for you.” 

Stiles waved his words away with one hand. “You helped pay for bills, that’s more than I even asked for. And you stayed. I really appreciate that you stayed.” 

“For you, always.” 

Isaac made a noise by the post, like a snort of derision, and Stiles jumped when another gunshot went off. Derek turned in time to see Isaac fall to the ground again, Kira putting her gun away. He gave her a look but she just shrugged, unrepentant, as Isaac inhaled sharply and sat up again. 

“What the _fuck_ , Kira!” he shouted for the second time that evening. 

“You are a very angry lady,” Stiles informed Kira, pointing a finger at her. 

“She used to be nicer,” Boyd said, turning to look at his friend and smiling slightly, “but she’s been stuck with Isaac for six hundred years. That makes everyone cranky.” 

“Six hun—okay.” Stiles clapped his hands together and pressed them against his lips. “That is enough excitement for one night. I am going to shower, and then go to bed, and try not to lose my mind while I sleep.” Stiles got to his feet, slapping his thighs again while standing. “Please stop firing weapons in my house, I have neighbours, and know a lot of over-protective cops who will drive down here at the first hint of danger.” 

“I prefer using my katana anyway, it’s just a little far at the moment,” was Kira’s easy response. 

Stiles stared at her, mouth slightly open, then let out a slow exhale and waved one hand dismissively. “Just don’t get any blood anywhere I can’t wash out.” 

With that, he headed for the rickety stairs back up to the kitchen, and disappeared from sight. 

Derek turned to share a look with Boyd, who shrugged. 

“I think that went well,” he offered. 

“Yeah,” Derek muttered, turning his gaze back towards the stairs. “For now.” 

Until his father died, at any rate. 

Then things likely wouldn’t _stay_ “well.” 

* * *

They hadn’t addressed the sleeping arrangements before Stiles disappeared into his dad’s room. Erica and Boyd would obviously be sharing—Derek told them they could _not_ get intimate in Stiles’ bed or he would make them regret it—but Isaac and Kira were the problem. 

Isaac was too tall for the couch, and Derek would never let Kira sleep on it, because that wasn’t very gentlemanly of him. Neither of them were happy, but they agreed to share the guest room and Derek went down to sleep on the couch instead. 

It wasn’t particularly comfortable, but he’d slept in worse places. 

He’d only just fallen asleep when he heard a soft thud and his eyes snapped open. He sat up, looking around, and saw a shadow coming down the stairs. Stiles moved around the banister, heading for the kitchen, and started violently at the sight of Derek. 

“Fuck,” he hissed, one hand gripping the banister and the other clenched over his heart. “Christ. Trying to give me a heart attack? One wasn’t enough for today?” 

“Sorry,” Derek said, throwing his legs over the side of the couch and pushing the blanket he’d borrowed from upstairs back onto the end of it. “Why are you still awake?” 

“Couldn’t sleep,” he admitted, shrugging one shoulder. “Brain’s kind of...” He brought one hand up and waved it absently around his head. “Lots going on. Makes it hard for me to sleep. It happens sometimes.” 

“I think it’s understandable, given everything you’ve just learned.” 

“Yeah.” Stiles tapped his fist lightly against the banister. It was too dark to really see much of his face, so Derek didn’t know what he was thinking. He was still worried their relationship had been irreparably damaged by this new revelation, but kept hoping it wouldn’t be.

A stupid hope, honestly, but Derek wasn’t very smart sometimes. 

“What are you doing on the couch?” Stiles asked after a long silence. 

“Sleeping.” Derek paused, then amended, “Trying to sleep.” 

“Why on the couch?” Stiles asked, sounding confused, then seemed to remember they were up a person. “Right. Boyd.” Another pause. “He and Erica aren’t fucking in my bed or anything, right?” 

Derek let out a small laugh, shaking his head and crossing his arms. “No. I already told them they weren’t allowed.” 

“Thanks. I guess they, uh, listen to you, huh? You’re like, the leader? Being the first and all.” 

“Yeah.”

“Were you alone for a long time?” 

Derek thought back to that first thousand years of wandering until he’d found Boyd and forced himself not to get lost in the memories of loneliness. “Yeah.” 

“Sorry.”

“You say that a lot for something that isn’t your fault.” 

Stiles shrugged one shoulder again, still tapping at the banister with his fist. “I guess I’m just thinking about what you’ve had to go through all this time. It must be really isolating.” 

“It can be. But I have the others. It helps.” 

“Are Boyd and Erica the only ones who are together?” Stiles asked, sounding curious. “Or are you and Kira together? Or—you and Isaac?” He let out a small laugh. “I _know_ Kira and Isaac aren’t together. They’re way past married couple in how they act. They’re more like married couple who got divorced on bad terms.” 

Derek laughed, because Stiles’ description wasn’t wrong. At least, based on what TV and movies had taught him. Or just observations in general. 

“Uh, no. They definitely aren’t together. And Kira, Isaac and I aren’t like that either. We’re family.” 

Stiles nodded in understanding. “How does that work for Boyd and Erica? Like, if they break up, then what?” 

Derek frowned, leaning back against the wall behind him and tilting his head in thought. “I don’t think it works like that. Kind of like how we all found each other, I think what they have is for the ages. When Erica died and we all dreamt about her, Boyd was the one who kind of lost his mind trying to find her. It was like he _knew_ she was something to him. Like she mattered more than anything else. From the moment they met, they’ve always just... _fit_.” 

“Like soulmates?” Stiles offered. 

“Soulmates aren’t real.” 

“Oh, immortals are a thing, but suddenly soulmates is _too much_?” Stiles asked, and Derek didn’t have to see his face to know he was rolling his eyes. 

Derek did the same. “Fine, okay, _maybe_ like soulmates,” he conceded. “But so far it’s only been the two of them. Which is fine, really. Kira doesn’t seem like the type to want anyone in her life romantically, and Isaac—well, his libido will calm down eventually.” 

“And you?” Stiles asked. 

Honestly, Derek didn’t know how to answer that question. Ever since he’d found his family, he wasn’t _lonely_ , but he would admit to sometimes wishing he could have what Erica and Boyd did. He wouldn’t mind having someone beside him like that. 

The feeling came and went fleetingly. He wasn’t particularly sexually active, not anymore at any rate. But he wouldn’t mind having someone to hold at night, someone to be beside him like Erica and Boyd had. 

He found himself eying the silhouette of the man in front of him, someone he’d known as long as Stiles had been alive, and shoved the thought aside viciously. That would only hurt them both, in the end. Stiles couldn’t come with them, and Derek knew one day he would lose him. 

There was no point in thinking the impossible. 

“You should get some sleep,” Derek said. “It’s late. And coming down to review SilverCorp files isn’t going to help you fall asleep faster.” 

“I mean, it might,” Stiles insisted, a smirk in his tone. “Boring shit.” 

“It’ll still be boring tomorrow.” 

Stiles’ head rolled, along with the eyes Derek couldn’t see, but he obediently turned to head back upstairs. “Good night Derek.” 

“Good night Stiles.” He stood watching him, but halfway up, Stiles paused and turned back to him. 

“You can sleep in dad’s room with me. If you want. The bed’s pretty big, and it’s more comfortable than the couch.” 

Derek opened his mouth to immediately take him up on it, but the words caught in his throat. Sharing a bed with Stiles shouldn’t be a big deal. It shouldn’t change anything, it was just sleep. But somehow, with what they’d just spoken about, and with how Derek knew he was starting to _feel_ , it felt dangerous. It felt like the first step towards changing their relationship and moving it in a direction Derek didn’t want it to go.

Except he really _did_ want it to go that way, which was why he absolutely could _not_ take him up on his offer. 

“Thanks, but I’m fine on the couch,” he said, the words feeling forced, even to his own ears. 

He saw Stiles’ silhouette nod, then he tapped one hand lightly on the banister, bid him good night again, and disappeared up the stairs. 

It took everything Derek had in him not to follow him. 

* * *

Kira was the first to wake the next morning and when she came down, she forced Derek off the couch and up to the bedroom so he could get some _actual_ sleep given he hadn’t gotten much of it. Sleeping on the couch wasn’t the problem so much as it was being in a room with a huge window and literally ten steps from the front door. He felt too exposed. 

As soon as he was in bed with Isaac, he passed out immediately and slept until well past noon. Isaac was gone by the time he opened his eyes again, and he could hear noise from downstairs. They definitely needed to figure out the sleeping arrangements, because Derek wasn’t going to do well on the couch for long. 

And he _definitely_ couldn’t share with Stiles, no matter _how_ much he wanted to. 

Once he was showered and dressed for the day, Derek headed downstairs and frowned when he heard loud music playing from the kitchen. He hadn’t noticed Stiles listening to anything lately, and it made him suspicious until he noticed his family sitting in the dining room, looking over files. 

When he walked in, Boyd looked up at him, and seemed almost defeated. 

“He’s been listening to that same song on repeat since he woke up.” 

“I hate it,” Erica muttered, angrily flipping a page. 

“I liked it,” Isaac offered. “You know, until he listened to it on repeat for the past three hours.” 

“And he doesn’t have a great singing voice,” Erica called loudly, which only had Stiles singing along louder. 

Derek stopped to actually _listen_ to what Stiles had playing, and then understood why Boyd was so defeated. He sighed and rubbed at his face as the chorus came on, and Stiles began singing even louder. 

_“‘Cause we could be immortals! **Immortals**! Just not for long, for long!” _

“Three hours?” Derek asked Boyd.

“It’s not as funny as he thinks it is,” Boyd insisted, just as the post chorus came on and Stiles continued to practically _scream_ the words, like now that Derek was awake, he could go all out. 

_“We could be immor-immortals! Immor-immortals!”_

“Okay!” Derek called loudly, clapping his hands and moving through the dining room and into the kitchen. It looked like Stiles was in the process of folding laundry, because there was a basket of it on one of the kitchen chairs, and a bunch of folded clothes on the kitchen table. “It’s cute. Real funny. Glad you’re entertained. But if it’s been three hours, it’s losing a bit of its appeal, so can we maybe...” He trailed off and motioned moving along with one hand. 

Stiles sighed explosively, like Derek was being unreasonable, and moved towards an Iphone doc on the far counter. He obediently changed songs, Derek nodding a thanks while moving to grab a coffee, but he froze when the first words of the new song hit his ears. 

_“They don’t know what it’s like in this life to live forever.”_

He turned to look at Stiles, who was grinning impishly at him. Derek detoured to head for the Iphone and when he looked at the album cover and the name, he saw that it was a song called ‘Immortal’ by Trippie Redd. 

“What, do you have a _playlist_ or something?” Derek asked him dryly. 

“There are a _surprisingly_ large number of songs about immortality,” Stiles informed him gleefully. 

Derek gave him an unimpressed look. “You’re not cute.” 

Stiles made a noise of debate. “Little cute.” 

“Not cute,” Derek repeated, turning the music off and taking the phone. Stiles spluttered out nonsensical words, but Derek ignored him and just shoved the phone into his pocket, then turned to grab himself some coffee. 

“Spoilsport,” Stiles muttered, but he at least didn’t try to get his phone back, though he _did_ continue to hum Fall Out Boy’s ‘Immortals’ under his breath. 

As annoying as he was sure the song was going to become, Derek was at least glad that Stiles seemed to be doing okay. Despite the crazy evening he’d had, he was still the same old Stiles, which was kind of a relief. Derek kept waiting for the other shoe to drop, but he kept hoping it wouldn’t. Given what he knew about Stiles, he was fairly certain it wouldn’t unless his father died. 

Which made him realize Stiles hadn’t gone to see him in a few days. It was probably a good thing, getting some distance, keeping himself distracted, but similarly Derek didn’t want him to spend all his time _away_ from his father. He’d probably have to convince him to go and visit again. Avoiding the problem didn’t make it go away, and he was sure John’s subconscious would react better to having Stiles around. 

After pouring himself a cup of coffee, he turned to say as much to Stiles, but found the words wouldn’t come. He just stood there, leaning back against the counter, watching Stiles fold laundry. It looked like he’d spent a majority of the morning doing it, because there were folded sheets, folded towels, and now folded shirts laid out across the kitchen table. 

Stiles was in the process of messily folding a small stack of shirts in a manner that wasn’t as tidy as all the other stacks, which suggested those would get hung up in his closet and he was just folding them to make it easier to bring them all upstairs. 

It struck Derek in this moment how much he’d missed out on in life. He’d never had anything like this before, and somehow, sitting in the kitchen with a coffee in his hand, watching someone he cared about do something as mundane as fold laundry was making him feel like, despite how long he’d been alive, he’d never actually had the opportunity to _live_. 

He wondered if this was how Boyd had felt until he’d met Erica. They fit together so perfectly, the two of them. They were always happy, always in each other’s orbit. Sure, they had their occasional fights, but they didn’t last long. Derek had always wondered how they could stand one another for _so long_ , but then maybe Stiles wasn’t entirely wrong yesterday. 

Derek didn’t think it was _soulmates_ , per se. But maybe whatever made them immortal also recognized that they couldn’t live _alone_. Family was one thing, and Derek was grateful for his every day, but there was something else missing. Something he’d never honestly really thought he’d wanted before until... 

Well, it didn’t matter. Stiles was growing up, he was aging more and more every day. One day, he would die, and Derek would have nothing, so there was no point in dwelling on it. This was just another thing his condition had stolen from him. 

“You okay?” 

Derek realized he’d been staring, and Stiles now had a basket of laundry in his arms, half the table cleared out. He had an eyebrow cocked at him, like he didn’t understand what Derek was looking at. 

“Yeah. Just thinking.”

“Don’t hurt yourself,” Stiles said with a grin. 

Derek rolled his eyes at the absurdity of that statement, but Stiles had already left the kitchen by then. When Derek turned to see about food, he paused at the sound of the doorbell ringing. Turning to glance into the dining room, he saw his family frozen, Boyd’s eyes meeting his. 

Stiles had gone silent for a moment, but seemed to have recovered quickly, footsteps padding towards the front door. When it opened, he sounded so fucking _normal_.

Derek didn’t know how he could always make everything seem so normal. 

“Hey! Long time no see. What’s up? How’s it going?” 

“Stiles. Doing all right?” 

Parrish. It was that fucking _Parrish_ guy again. Derek really didn’t like him. Big brother or not, Derek _severely_ disliked him. He didn’t like how _easily_ he spoke to Stiles, and touched him, and just got right into his space. 

Boyd gave him a look, probably reading something on his face, but Derek ignored him and set his coffee down before striding out of the kitchen. 

It was stupid. It was _beyond_ stupid. He didn’t even have a hat on, Stiles was purposefully keeping the door mostly shut, this was someone who’d worked with his father for _years_! Derek knew it was nothing, and he was being an idiot, but he didn’t like other people being _that_ physically close to Stiles. 

So while Parrish was telling Stiles that he hadn’t seen him around the station or the hospital lately, Derek came up behind him, grabbed the edge of the door Stiles was keeping mostly closed, and wrenched it open so hard Stiles fell back into him.

“Are you here for a reason, or do you always show up to people’s homes uninvited?” 

“Dude!” Stiles insisted, turning to stare at him with big brown eyes. “What the fuck?” 

“You’re still here then?” Parrish asked, clearly unimpressed with Derek’s attitude. “How long are you planning on staying?” 

“A while,” Derek ground out. “Why, eager for me to leave?”

“Dude,” Stiles said again, more emphatically, shoving at Derek hard enough that he actually managed to get him to back up a few steps. 

“Who even _are_ you?” Parrish demanded, crossing his arms. “I find it extremely interesting that you happen to show up when the sheriff isn’t home, and now appear to be living here.” 

“He’s a family friend,” Stiles insisted, moving between them, and waving one hand spastically behind himself to make Derek fuck off. “He and dad go back a ways. It’s fine.” 

“Stiles—”

“Parrish!” Stiles said sharply. “I’m an adult. I can take care of myself. It’s _fine_.” 

Parrish was still scowling at Derek, who just scowled right back, crossing his arms and jutting his chin out, as if daring him to say anything. It seemed he didn’t want to piss Stiles off, because he just focussed back on him and his expression softened slightly. 

“You should visit your dad. I know it’s hard, but it’ll help him.” 

“I will,” Stiles said, and Derek could hear the guilt in his tone. “I’ll—yeah, today. Later. I’ll go.” 

“Okay. Call me if you need anything, okay? _Anything_.” His eyes snapped back up to Derek’s, hardening once more. 

“Thanks. I will. I’ll drop by the station at some point.” 

“Okay. Take care of yourself.” 

Derek tensed when Parrish leaned forward, crushing Stiles in a hug. He only stayed put because Stiles was hugging him back, slapping the cop’s back a few times before pulling away. 

“Thanks Parrish. I’ll see you later.” 

The deputy glared at Derek one last time before turning around and walking back down the porch steps. Stiles waited until he was halfway down the driveway before shutting and locking the door. Then, he inhaled deeply, pressed both hands together as if in prayer, brought them up to his lips, and turned around. 

For a moment, he said nothing, standing there with his hands pressed together against his lips. Then slowly, he lowered them so they were pointing at Derek, and said, surprisingly calmly, “What the ever loving fuck?” 

“I don’t like him.” 

“You don’t—okay.” Stiles separated his hands so he could rub at his face, slumping back against the door slightly. “Listen to me.” He let them drop back to his sides, giving Derek a hard look. “You are an immortal being who is currently sought after by one of the richest men in the country. Parrish is an over-protective cop who probably thinks you’re using me in nefarious ways.” 

Derek’s scowl turned into a look of confusion. “Why would he think that?” 

“Derek, you showed up, and all my bills magically got paid. And then you _stayed_.” Stiles motioned him emphatically. “You are _still here_. He has never seen you before, but suddenly this guy just appears out of nowhere, pays off all dad’s debts, and is now living in his house with his son. Parrish probably thinks I like, sold myself to you in exchange for helping out with dad.” Stiles brought one hand up to rub at his face again, letting out a groan of frustration. “Why did dad have to be a cop? Why couldn’t he be like, an accountant or something? Accountants don’t check in on their co-worker’s sons. Accountants aren’t over-protective.” 

“They can be,” Derek offered. 

“You’re not helping.” Stiles pointed a finger at him with his opposite hand, since he still had the other covering his face. “This is the _opposite_ of helping.” 

“Why is he the only one who keeps coming around?” Derek demanded.

“Probably because he’s the only one who’s good at ducking.” Derek’s confused look was lost on Stiles, since he still had one hand covering his face, but his silence was probably enough of a hint because he sighed and started to explain before even dropping his hand. “I was kind of uh, throwing shit. For a while. People came to check in and I yelled a lot and told them to fuck off. Melissa is the only person I basically didn’t chase away, but she’s probably busy with work and knows I’d rather her be there looking out for dad than here with me. Parrish just... drops in when he has time. To make sure I’m like, eating and stuff.” Stiles shrugged, crossing his arms somewhat defensively. “January was sort of a bad month.”

“I’m sorry,” Derek said automatically. 

“Not your fault. Unless you’re the one who shot him, but pretty sure you’re not.” Stiles slapped at his arm on his way by, bending down to pick up the laundry basket so he could continue with his original task of bringing it upstairs. “Should be some scones in the microwave, Boyd made them earlier. Unless Isaac ate them all.” 

“Thanks.” Derek watched Stiles head up the stairs, the man shaking his head and muttering under his breath. 

“These people, I swear. Gonna lead me to an early grave. Is this how dad feels when I give him heart attacks? It sucks, I should stop doing that to him.” 

He disappeared around the banister at the top and moved out of sight. Derek headed for the kitchen and located the scones, grabbing two of the four remaining ones, and then picked his coffee back up so he could join the others in the dining room. 

No one said anything, but when he sat down at the head of the table, since only the two end spots were open, he saw Boyd watching him. 

He ignored him and bit into his breakfast. 

* * *

By the beginning of March, John was no longer in an induced coma, and he wasn’t in any immediate danger, but he still hadn’t woken up. His wounds were healing well, and the doctor said there shouldn’t be any impact to his day to day once he’d gone through a bit of physical therapy from being bed-ridden for two months, but he was careful to avoid mentioning anything about when he’d wake up. 

Derek supposed it made sense. He’d been shot in the head. The fact that he _hadn’t_ died was a miracle in and of itself. He’d heard of that happening before. People getting shot in the head but somehow surviving. It was rare, but it happened. He was glad John was one of them. 

Stiles tried to visit more often. He always acted like he thought Derek was going to run off while he was gone, and seemed relieved every time he came home to find him still there. 

Derek had no plans of going anywhere as long as he could help it. For now, he was more than happy staying with Stiles. No one knew they were there—except that fucking guy Parrish, and Melissa McCall who seemed to be keeping her mouth shut about it—and SilverCorp hadn’t popped up on any radars anywhere _near_ Beacon Hills. 

All in all, it was kind of nice. Being together again, living in a big house that felt more like a _home_ , hanging out with Stiles. 

Derek really liked hanging out with Stiles. He liked how _normal_ Stiles made him feel. He took so many things in stride, and joked around a lot, and was just _so smart_. Derek had never met anyone like him, and he felt like he’d never meet anyone like him ever again. 

The only downside to always being around Stiles was that he couldn’t stop _looking_ at him. He didn’t know why, because this was kind of a new thing for him, but he just... he really liked him. A lot. Stiles was interesting, and funny, and smart, and like a bright light in a dark room. Derek felt like a different person when he was with him, and for the first time in—really, _forever_ , he found himself wanting someone. 

He’d always had needs, because he was still human, and they all had needs. All of them did. They went out and dealt with them as needed, wasn’t like it was hard for Derek to find someone to sleep with for a night. And he’d admit that they’d, on rare occasions, helped one another out in their own needs. Never Erica, and since her, never Boyd. But before they’d been a thing, if two of them had an urge, well it wasn’t outside the norm for them to help each other through it. 

Derek had never felt attracted to anyone before, but he was attracted to Stiles. He liked watching him chew on his pens, and lick his lips, and bite at his lower one. He liked the way his eyes would brighten when he had an idea, or how they got focussed on something so intently that Derek could see the millions of thoughts going through his mind. He liked Stiles’ hands, and how he always spoke with them, and how he could never sit still, always having to do something with them, twirl a pen, rip the edges of the page he had open in his notebook, tap his fingers against the table. 

He liked his voice, and his laugh, and how everything just seemed to be so _easy_ with him. 

When Derek had first shown up, and he’d called him out on being Supernatural, not _once_ had Stiles thought that was an impossibility. He’d looked at all the facts, thought through the possibilities, and come up with a conclusion, as absurd as it had been. When he’d been told about them being immortals, the only reason he hadn’t believed them was because there was no explanation. There was nothing like a bat biting a person to create a Vampire, or a rabid wolf biting a person to create a Werewolf, or a fucking radioactive spider to create a superhero. 

His brain was trying to find the correlation, and because he couldn’t, it had been disregarded. But as soon as it was proven, it wasn’t a huge rollercoaster of panic and screaming and Stiles trying to climb out a window and escape. It had been shock, and questions, and—sadness. Sadness for them, for himself, for everything they’d gone through. 

Stiles was like nothing Derek had ever seen before, and everything he never knew he wanted. And he was mad at the universe for throwing him in his path. He was mad that he’d met Harrison Stilinski all those decades ago, that he’d kept up with this family, that he’d decided to be friends with a little boy on the other end of the line who called himself Mischief. Because now Derek could see the man that little boy had become, and he could stare longingly at the one thing in his life he wanted, that he’d ever _truly_ wanted, and was never going to have. 

It wasn’t fair to Stiles. It wasn’t fair to him. Stiles deserved the opportunity to go out there, have a life, meet an amazing woman—or man—and have a family, grow old, be _happy_. He didn’t deserve to just have Derek every couple of years, whenever it was safe for him to see him. He didn’t deserve to have to wait, always wait, and eventually waste his life just _waiting_ for Derek. 

He didn’t want that for Stiles. He wanted him to be happy. So no matter what happened, no matter how Derek felt, no matter how _badly_ this was one thing, just _one thing_ that he wanted, he wasn’t going to take this from Stiles. 

Derek would survive through this. He had forever to get over this. 

Stiles only had right now. Derek wasn’t going to take that from him. 

**TBC...**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you Adara for the playlist idea <3 I only had Immortals from Fall Out Boy planned, but your playlist idea brought me great joy~ 
> 
> Additional Tags/Warnings:  
> \- Kira is a violent person in this universe and she often kills Isaac when he pisses her off. Just sayin'. 
> 
> Obligatory Copyright Shit:  
> \- Teen Wolf (c) Jeff Davis  
> \- The Old Guard (c) Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernández  
> \- Project Power (c) Netflix  
> \- Immortals (c) Fall Out Boy  
> \- Immortal (c) Trippie Redd  
> \- Spiderman (c) Marvel


	5. One Moment

“Maybe we should call him,” Isaac said, making Derek pause in the notes he was reviewing to glance up at him. “That Chris guy. The one John’s been speaking to.” 

“I’m not even going to dignify that with a response,” Boyd said, leaning back in his seat with a file in one hand. He pointed at Derek without looking at him. “And neither should you.” 

“What’s the alternative?” Isaac demanded. “We just sit here forever, looking at the same files over and over again as if they’re going to yield different results? Or we could just go to SilverCorp, surround the place with C4 and be done with it.” 

“We’re not killing innocent people,” Derek said pointedly. 

“They work for that company, that’s their problem,” Isaac argued. 

“They don’t _know_ who they work for,” Derek snapped, glaring over at him. “We’re not doing that. We’ll find another way.” 

Isaac threw his arms up in defeat, then dragged one of the many folders back over, opening it with a sarcastic smile in Derek’s direction before reading it over. 

Again. 

Honestly, Isaac wasn’t wrong. They hadn’t really made any headway since their arrival. Derek’s main focus at the time had been Stiles and the man who’d shot John. But that had all been resolved basically right away, and then since then it was just all of them reading the files over and over. 

Sometimes they just watched TV or chatted about things, but mostly they were all in the dining room trying to figure out how to get rid of the man looking to use them as lab rats. Gerard Argent likely wasn’t going to be the last person to find out about them and try and use them for power and money, but he was the first. They needed to figure out the best way to deal with situations like this so they would know how to proceed next time. 

Boyd rubbed at his forehead, scowling down at his own file and Isaac was still sulking while reviewing his. Derek thought maybe today should be a break day. Kira hadn’t bothered this morning, still in the guest room sharpening her katana, and Erica was taking a shower in the sheriff’s en suite. 

They’d re-arranged all the sleeping arrangements in the past few weeks, because the couch wasn’t working out for Derek, and he felt bad that Stiles wasn’t in his own room. 

Stiles didn’t mind having people in his dad’s bed, he just thought it might be a bit weird for them which was why he’d originally offered. But they didn’t care, a bed was a bed, so Boyd and Erica ended up in the sheriff’s room. It had an en suite, so it worked out better for the couple, particularly since Erica took forever in the morning. 

Derek and Kira were in the guest room together, sharing that bed. They’d bought an inflatable mattress for Isaac, which was on the floor at the foot of the bed. It was kind of cramped in the room, but all they did in there was sleep, and sometimes they weren’t even all sleeping at the same time, so it wasn’t a hardship. 

Stiles had his own room back. He seemed pretty happy about it, which made sense since his computer, consoles and various books were all there. It meant he could stay awake all night doing who knew what, as much as Derek hated it.

Better than having him downstairs obsessing over SilverCorp files when there was nothing he could do about it. 

Stiles hadn’t stirred yet today, but it was still relatively early, just after nine, so Derek wasn’t worried. Stiles alternated between waking up early and sleeping in late. He attributed that to his messed up sleep schedule and the obscene amount of coffee he drank.

Actually, Derek himself was also out of coffee, as he discovered when he reached for his mug and found it to be much lighter than he’d been expecting. Sighing to himself, he got to his feet, neither of his family glancing up, and went to the kitchen. The pot was empty—unsurprising, they drank coffee like it was the reason for their immortality—so he went about starting a fresh brew. The machine began to whir loudly, Derek leaning back against the counter while he waited when he tensed. 

The lock on the front door had just snapped loudly, denoting someone had just unlocked it, and then it was pushed open. Boyd was looking up at Derek through the entrance to the dining room, sitting frozen in his chair as the front door slammed loudly. 

Derek moved to the kitchen doorway, looking down the corridor in time to see someone disappearing up the stairs, flipping a set of keys in their hand. He moved quickly after them, rounding the bottom of the stairs in time to see the unknown party turn at the landing.

Boyd appeared in the living room entrance, tossing Derek one of his rifles. Derek caught it one-handed and moved quickly and silently up the stairs, weapon held at the ready. When he reached the top, the unknown person had just disappeared into Stiles’ room as Kira emerged from the guest room with her sword gripped tightly in one hand. 

Bringing one finger to his lips, Kira nodded her understanding while they both inched towards Stiles’ door from opposite sides. Derek peeked around the corner, and then frowned. 

The unknown party in Stiles’ room appeared to be a man, probably the same age as Stiles. He had close-cropped blond hair, broad shoulders, and was currently shrugging out of a coat that he tossed onto the back of Stiles’ desk chair. He toed off his shoes, and then climbed onto the bed, moving up behind Stiles and fucking _spooning_ him above the covers, pulling him tightly against his front. 

Derek felt his chest clench at the sight. What the fuck was going on? Who _was_ this?! Why did he—this guy had fucking _keys_ to the house. He’d just walked in like he owned the place. He’d wandered upstairs without a care in the world, had crawled into bed with Stiles, with _Stiles_! Like he _belonged_ there! Like he was... 

Like he was...

Stiles inhaled deeply and shifted on the bed, pressing back into the body behind him. He seemed to be waking up a little bit, because he let out a small groan, like he didn’t want to come back to the land of consciousness, and then—he said the most confusing thing Derek had ever heard. 

“Derek?” 

He saw Kira glance at him out of the corner of his eye, but kept his face completely neutral, even as his heart went a mile a minute. 

Someone was lying in bed with Stiles, and upon waking Stiles’ _first thought_ was that it was Derek. 

Why? 

_Why_ did he think that? 

Was that... was that something he _wanted_? 

Before Derek could think on it too much, the person in bed with Stiles spoke. 

“Why the fuck would I be Derek?” 

It took exactly one second for Stiles to fully wake up, limbs flailing while he half-sat up and tried to roll over at the same time. Derek ducked back around the side of the door, back pressed against the wall, heart pounding and mind going a mile a minute. Kira was in the same position on the other side of the door, sword gripped in both hands, but her eyes were locked on him.

He ignored her. 

“Jackson?!”

Well, at least he had context now. 

“Why are you having wet dreams about your dad’s friend?” 

“What? I’m not. What are you—I don’t know what—when did you get here?” 

“Flight landed about two hours ago. Spoke to McCall before I left the house, he was almost home, so he’ll be around soon, too.”

“But—why are you _here_? You hate coming home. I thought you were going to Cancun for spring break to be a university cliche.” 

“I was. But then my best friend’s dad got shot, and that kind of took priority for me.” 

There was a short, somewhat uncomfortable silence, Derek turning his head slightly, but not peeking around the edge of the door again. Stiles would see him and he didn’t want him to know two armed immortals were hanging out right outside his ajar bedroom door. 

“How is he?” Jackson asked, voice a little less hard than it had been moments before. “Your dad.” 

“Stable.” Stiles cleared his throat. “You know, hanging in there. Took him out of the induced coma, but he’s still, well... I mean, I wouldn’t want to wake up, either.” 

“He’s a tough son of a bitch. You know that, right? It’s why you’re such a pain in the ass. He’s gonna wake up, and he’s gonna be fine.” 

“Yeah,” Stiles said quietly. “Thanks. For coming, I mean.” 

“Cancun would’ve been boring without you anyway,” Jackson said breezily, but Derek could tell he was lying. Stiles had always said Jackson was a nice guy hiding behind the mask of an asshole. He’d never really understood what that meant until now, because it was obvious that Jackson wouldn’t have dreamt of going to Cancun knowing Stiles was alone dealing with his father in the hospital. 

“Yeah. Cancun is more for college girls anyway, not gay pretty boys like you.” 

“Fuck you,” Jackson said, and Derek heard a loud smack and a curse from Stiles. His grip tightened around the weapon he held, then loosened, Derek forcing himself to take a slow breath and release it. 

“So why were you dreaming about your dad’s friend, anyway?” 

“What?” Stiles asked around a yawn. “What do you mean?” 

“When I was holding you, you called me Derek. You into old dudes now or something?”

There was a very _long_ silence that followed this statement, Derek and Kira sharing a look. Like Stiles had only _just_ remembered that he had a house full of immortals, and his best friend had just waltzed right on into it. 

“Oh, you know, no reason.” Stiles coughed, then cleared his throat. “So how-how long have you been here? In the house, I mean. Did you uh, s-see anyone? On your way in?” 

“What?” Jackson asked. 

“You know, just—were there... people? Around? Somewhere?” 

Jackson was silent for a moment. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Nothing,” Stiles said loudly, coughing again awkwardly. “Just—dreaming. Having uh, weird erotic fantasies about older uh, you know, men. And-and women. Just—can I?” 

Derek inched a bit closer at those words and saw Stiles crawling his way over Jackson. He glanced up and saw Derek peeking into his room, which made him miss the bed when he went to put his hand down and he let out a shout as he fell right off it, landing with an almost overly loud ‘thud.’ 

When Jackson twisted around to see what the hell Stiles was doing, Derek ducked back out of the room, looking at Kira, and saw her looking towards the stairs. Derek frowned, turned to follow her gaze, and froze. 

There was someone standing at the landing, one hand on the banister and eyes wide, taking in Derek and Kira on either side of Stiles’ door, both of them holding weapons. It occurred to Derek that the loud ‘thud’ of Stiles falling hadn’t _just_ been Stiles falling.

It had been the front door slamming. 

“What the fuck?” the guy at the stairs demanded loudly. 

“Scott?” Stiles’ voice asked from the bedroom. 

Hearing his name must have jolted him into action, because Scott immediately turned to barrel back down the stairs, footsteps thumping loudly while he cursed on his way down. Kira raced for the banister and leapt right over it, landing in a crouch one step below Scott and holding her sword out towards him just as he’d pulled his phone from his pocket. 

“What’s going on?” Jackson demanded, storming out of the bedroom even as Stiles told him to _wait_. He turned his head just enough to see Derek out of the corner of his eye before jerking back a few steps with a curse. 

When he started to slam Stiles’ bedroom door, Derek turned and kicked it back open, throwing Jackson back into the room from the force of it so that he slammed into Stiles’ desk. Derek raised the rifle, aiming it at him as Jackson pulled his phone out. 

“Stop it!” Stiles shouted, grabbing at Jackson’s wrist and standing between him and Derek’s raised gun. He turned to look at him, eyes wide. “Put the gun down! Derek, _put it down_!” 

“What is happening?!” Scott’s shrill voice demanded from the hallway. 

“Put the gun down!” Stiles insisted, sounding desperate. 

“Stiles, why do you have a crazy lady with a _sword_ in your house?!” Scott demanded. 

Derek half-turned his head when he heard the voice coming closer, but didn’t lower the gun and didn’t take his eyes off Jackson. 

Scott stumbled into the room, hands raised and Kira gripping the back of his shirt, sword pressed horizontally along his throat. He was still holding his phone in one hand, same as Jackson. 

“What the fuck is going on?” Jackson demanded, voice angry and tone stressed. 

“Stiles,” Scott agreed, sounding extremely nervous and appearing to try and keep his head tilted back so that the very sharp blade of Kira’s katana didn’t slice into his neck. 

“Guys,” Stiles started, but Kira cut him off. 

“Why are people just _inviting_ themselves into your house?” 

“It’s not what—”

“Who the fuck are _you_ , lady?!” Jackson demanded angrily. 

“Jackson, can you ple—”

“I can leave,” Scott cut in. “I can totally leave. This is clearly a bad time, I’m fine just going home.” 

“Can everyone _please_ just—”

“My dad’s a lawyer, and I have him on speed dial, you do _not_ want to fuck with us!” Jackson cut in.

Before Derek could make any kind of remark on _that_ childish comment, Stiles seemed to have lost his patience. 

“Everyone!” he shouted, making all of them freeze. And shut up. “Put the weapons, _and_ the cell phones,” he said emphatically, turning to Jackson, “down. Right now. Put ‘em down.” 

Kira shot a look at Derek and he stared right back before very slowly lowering the rifle he was holding. Kira obediently lowered her sword and took a step back. Scott still held his hands in the air for a few seconds, and when he was sure she’d moved away, he practically leapt across the room to where Stiles was, grabbing his shirt while moving around behind him, still holding his phone in his hand. 

Jackson was, too. In his defence, Stiles was still holding his wrist in an almost bruising grip. When he slowly released it, still staring Jackson down, the other man glared at him furiously, but obediently put his phone back in his pocket. Scott did the same, although with much shakier hands. 

Stiles let out a slow breath, closed his eyes, and rubbed at his face. “It is _way_ too early for this,” he muttered behind his hands, then let them drag down his cheeks. He slapped them together as if in prayer and pressed them against his lips. He kept his eyes closed while he stood there, Kira and Derek blocking his door, and his friends crowded around him by his desk. 

Scott looked extremely nervous. Jackson looked pissed, but Derek could tell that beneath that mask he was worried. His friend had started acting weird, and then suddenly a guy with a gun was in his face and a woman with a sword was holding another one of his friends hostage. 

That was the downside of living this life. Sometimes they reacted before thinking things through, because they didn’t usually have to worry about whether or not they could kill the people coming at them. Usually they were bad people. 

These were just a bunch of scared university students. 

Footsteps sounded down the corridor behind them, but Derek didn’t turn when someone stopped in the doorway. 

“What the hell’s going on in here?” Erica demanded.

“Stiles, how many fucking people with weapons do you have in your _fucking_ house?” Jackson hissed. 

Stiles still hadn’t moved from his previous position, hands still pressed together against his lips and eyes closed. After Jackson’s last inquiry, he inhaled deeply, dropped his hands, and opened his eyes. He didn’t look at anyone when he spoke. He just stared across his room at the wall. 

“We are all adults,” he said, stating the obvious. “We are all going to calm down, put away our weapons, go downstairs, and have a calm, normal, _adult_ conversation.” 

“Why does she have a sword?” Scott demanded, nodding towards Kira while still gripping at Stiles’ sleeve. 

Stiles’s head snapped in his direction and he threw his arms up in defeat. “Why does Jackson have a Porsche? People buy things, Scott! She wanted a sword, she bought a sword, what kind of question is that?!” 

“A pretty fucking _reasonable_ one for someone who almost got his throat slit!” Scott argued, free hand coming up to rub at his neck. 

“If I wanted to kill you, you’d already be dead,” Kira said. 

Stiles rounded on her, pointing a finger at her. “You are not helping. Can you just—” He cut off and motioned for them to shoo while turning back to his friends. “Leave. Go sharpen your sword or something.” 

“I did that this morning,” Kira informed him. 

“Oh my God,” Stiles shouted, twisting back around to face them and looking like he was going to lose his mind. “Just go clean something, I don’t know! Just _leave_!” 

“Someone’s coming up the driveway,” Boyd informed them loudly from downstairs. “I think it’s that cop who always drops by.”

Stiles covered his face with both hands and looked like he just wanted to be anywhere else. Sure enough, two seconds later, the doorbell rang. 

“This is a nightmare,” Stiles said, dropping his hands and striding towards the door. “This is a fucking nightmare.” 

“Where the fuck are you going?!” Jackson demanded, jerking away from the desk, but taking a step back when Derek raised his rifle again. 

Stiles grabbed the barrel and forced it back down, pointing a finger in Derek’s face. “Behave. You two,” he turned and motioned his friends, “just—stay here. I’ll be right back.” 

“Stiles!” Scott insisted, but he’d already moved past Derek and the two women to head for the stairs. 

The doorbell rang again. 

“Yeah, I’m coming,” Stiles snapped loudly. “Christ, can’t a guy sleep in peace?” 

Derek didn’t raise his gun again, but he kept his glare locked on Jackson, who was staring right back. He crossed his arms almost defiantly while staring Derek down, it was kind of adorable. If he thought Derek was scared of him and his lawyer daddy, he was _severely_ mistaken. 

The conversation between fucking _Parrish_ and Stiles downstairs didn’t last very long. They never did, just the cop dropping in at random times to make sure Stiles was doing all right. Probably checking in to make sure he was still alive and Derek hadn’t eaten his liver or something. 

Scott had switched to gripping the back of Jackson’s shirt upon losing the ability to grip at Stiles’, and both of them stared at Derek, Kira and Erica where they stood blocking the door. He could see Scott’s gaze shunting back and forth between the three of them and the window, like he thought maybe he could make a break for it, but Derek wasn’t concerned. If they weren’t shouting for help knowing a cop was at the door, evidently they trusted Stiles enough to explain why there were strange people in his house pointing guns and swords at them. 

When Stiles bid Parrish farewell, Derek heard the front door shut and lock, and then a loud thunk, like Stiles had just slammed his head against it. 

Nobody spoke for a long while, but Derek could see Jackson’s jaw twitching. He wasn’t going to stay quiet for long. Stiles evidently knew it too, because he called back up the stairs. 

“Are you guys going to be able to play nice and come down the stairs together, or do I need to go up there and play mediator?” 

Erica shrugged, clearly unconcerned, and turned on her heel to continue down the corridor. She was dressed to the nines, as usual, and Derek felt like she was starting to get a little _too_ comfortable. He knew if she broke her ankle running in heels it would just fix itself in a matter of seconds, but still, it would be inconvenient and she’d bitch about it. 

Kira half-turned, clearly unhappy, but she waited for Derek to follow before heading out of the room. The two of them headed down the stairs together, Stiles waiting for them at the bottom. He wordlessly pointed towards the living room, where Boyd, Isaac and Erica were already waiting, and the two of them went to join the rest of their family. 

Jackson and Scott were slower to follow, and Derek worried they might be upstairs calling the police, but eventually they appeared at the bottom of the stairs where Stiles was still standing. Scott looked pale, and confused, and like he wanted to make a break for the door. Jackson looked pissed, but also worried, and like he thought Stiles was in some kind of trouble and was unwilling to leave until he figured out how bad it was. 

“Okay.” Stiles rubbed at his face again with both hands, Jackson and Scott staring into the living room at them. It occurred to Derek that they both now knew what all of them looked like, and unfortunately, killing them wasn’t an option. “Okay,” Stiles repeated. “This is cool. This is fine. Everything’s fine.” He rubbed at the back of his neck with a wince, and Derek could tell he was trying to figure out what to say. 

“Why does she have a sword?” Scott asked again, nodding towards Kira. 

“Why are you so obsessed with the sword?” Stiles demanded, giving Scott a look. “She likes swords, they make her feel taller, I don’t know. Who cares?”

Kira gave Derek a look for that and he just shrugged. Stiles seemed to be a little off his game right now. To be fair, he’d kind of had a rough morning. 

When Stiles inhaled, either to spill the beans or come up with the best lie in existence, Boyd interrupted him before he got a word out. 

“Perhaps, in light of everything, it may be best for us to have this conversation somewhere a bit less open. Like the basement.” 

“Why are we going to the basement?” Scott demanded immediately, eyes shifting back and forth between Stiles and Boyd. 

“Yeah, I’m not—I’m not going to the basement,” Jackson agreed, arms crossed and shaking his head. “I don’t _do_ basements.” 

“Oh God, are they going to kill us?” Scott hissed to Stiles, still perfectly loud enough for the rest of them to hear. “Have we seen too much? I don’t even know _what_ I’m seeing, let alone how much of it I _have_ seen!” 

“No one is killing anyone,” Boyd insisted, trying for his most calming voice. 

“Says the guy trying to take us to the basement!” Scott insisted loudly. 

“Scott.” Stiles grabbed his shoulders. “Buddy. Have you slept?” 

“Not really, no,” he admitted. “I was on the Red Eye. Turbulence kind of kept me up all night.” 

“Right. Okay.” Stiles patted his shoulders with both hands. “Coffee, then.”

“You honestly think he needs caffeine right now?” Jackson demanded. 

“Well _I_ definitely need caffeine so...” Stiles used the hands he had on Scott’s shoulders to turn him around and push him towards the kitchen. Jackson glared out at the group in the living room before following. 

Derek looked over at Boyd, who was staring right back. 

“This is going to be a problem,” Boyd said. 

“Yeah.” Derek had no idea how they were going to explain this. He recognized that the weapons hadn’t helped, but Scott had already seen them. If it had only been Jackson in the room, Kira and Derek could’ve ditched the weapons before he came out, maybe even just hidden so that Stiles could pretend he was home alone. 

But Scott had shown up and seen them lingering outside his bedroom, two strangers armed and staking out his friend’s room. They’d kind of reacted the same way they always did to being caught in the act. Honestly, since their usual gut-reaction was to start firing weapons, Scott and Jackson were both extremely lucky that wasn’t what they’d done. 

He could hear Jackson and Scott hissing things to Stiles in the kitchen—one a little shriller than the other—and despite knowing he’d already caused more harm than good, Derek moved to head down the corridor into the kitchen, seeing Stiles standing at the coffee pot that looked to have just finished brewing, pouring himself a cup, with Jackson on one side and Scott on the other. 

Both of them went silent the second Derek walked into the kitchen. Stiles replaced the pot and turned to see what they were looking at, but said nothing while watching Derek, taking a sip of his coffee. They stared at one another in silence for a long while, Scott looking back and forth between them and Jackson just scowling at Derek the entire time. 

Derek didn’t like Jackson. But then, he also recognized it was because Jackson had just invited himself into Stiles’ _bed_ , like he _belonged_ there. He tried to remind himself that Stiles had said _his_ name upon waking, but that only opened up a whole bunch more problems so it likely wasn’t something to focus on. 

“Who are they?” Jackson finally asked when the silence stretched for too long. 

Derek turned his head and saw Boyd lingering in the kitchen doorway, his second always close in case he needed him. The others, wisely, kept their distance. 

“They are...” Stiles trailed off, taking a huge sip of coffee while staring at Derek. When he lowered the mug, Jackson and Scott waiting expectantly, he said, “Government agents. Mm, yeah. Special forces. They’re just... lying low. You know, until their uh, handler touches base.” 

He took another loud sip of his coffee, still staring at Derek, likely to avoid looking at either of his friends, both of whom were staring at him. 

“Government agents?” Scott asked, sounding confused. 

“Does Parrish know about this?” Jackson demanded. 

Stiles rolled his eyes and scoffed, glancing at his friend. “Parrish isn’t my _dad_.” 

“So you’re saying he _doesn’t_ know about this.”

Apparently Stiles wasn’t the only one who could back people into a corner with words, because those ones had Stiles sputtering for a few seconds, trying to look offended before he managed to speak _real_ words. 

“I didn’t say that! Of _course_ he knows! Parrish knows everything.” Stiles took another loud, annoying slurp of coffee, like he was trying to make his friends focus more on that than anything else coming out of his mouth. 

“And he’s cool with having five dangerous, heavily armed ‘special forces government agents’ hanging out in your living room?” Jackson demanded, clearly aware that they were neither special forces, nor did Parrish have any idea that they were there. 

Well, that second part was only partially true. He knew _Derek_ was there. Just not the rest. 

“Yes,” Stiles insisted with another offended scoff. 

Jackson didn’t look impressed. “You’re a terrible liar.” 

“Actually, I’ll have you know, I am an _exceptional_ liar. I just—am not fully awake yet. It’s taking some time for the, you know, cylinders in my brain to fire.” Stiles motioned his head absently with one hand and took another sip of coffee. 

“You’re so full of shit, Stilinski,” Jackson insisted, and when he reached for his pocket, probably about to call Parrish himself, Derek figured the easiest solution was to go with the truth.

Well, part of it. 

“You care about Stiles, right?” Derek asked, both Jackson and Scott’s eyes snapping in his direction. “You don’t want to see him hurt?” 

They didn’t say anything, but they didn’t have to. It was quite clear both of them were worried about him and didn’t want to see him hurt. 

“Stiles is helping us right now. We can’t tell you why, because the more you know, the more danger you’re in. But if you tell anyone we’re here, you’re putting a target on Stiles’ back. Is that what you want?” Scott glanced at Stiles. Jackson just scowled at Derek. “We’re not going to hurt Stiles, but the people after us will if they know he’s helping us. So if you want to be responsible for the death of your friend, go ahead and call your lawyer father, call Parrish, call whoever you want. But if you want to keep Stiles safe, if you want to _protect_ him, then you’re going to pretend you never saw us and carry on like we’re not even here.” 

Stiles pointed at Derek with his coffee mug. “Yeah, that. All of that.” 

“If your presence is a danger to him, maybe you should _leave_ ,” Jackson snapped. 

Stiles turned to him sharply, mouth opening like he wanted to argue, but Derek spoke first. 

“I’m not leaving him here alone. Not until his father is out of the hospital.” 

“He’s not alone,” Scott insisted, sounding a little braver now. “He has _us_.”

“And where were you last month?” Boyd asked from the door. “Where are you going to be in a week’s time? Still here? Still beside him? No, you’ll be back at school.” 

Scott opened his mouth to say something, then closed it, looking to Jackson for help. He didn’t seem to have any better answers, glaring at Boyd, then at Derek. 

“Who the fuck _are_ you?” 

Derek glanced at Stiles, who looked kind of lost in this moment. Like he didn’t want to lie, but didn’t want to tell the truth, either. 

“Derek,” he finally said. 

Jackson narrowed his eyes at him. “Bullshit, Derek is some old dude who creeps on Stiles when his dad’s not home.”

“Dude,” Stiles insisted, elbowing Jackson, but his friend just ignored him. 

“I’m the old dude,” Derek said coldly. “I have good genes.” 

“Look, this is—it’s kind of hard to explain,” Stiles said, setting his coffee down and rubbing his eyes with both hands. “But they’re just trying to keep a low profile.” 

“Aiming guns at people isn’t exactly conducive in ‘keeping a low profile,’” Jackson said dryly. 

“And swords,” Scott cut in. 

“Dude, seriously?” Stiles looked over at him. “Let that go.” 

“We need his help,” Derek said. “He’s the only person we can trust.” 

Jackson scowled, arms still crossed and looking like he was _not_ happy about this one bit. But he seemed to recognize Derek didn’t want to hurt Stiles, and that seemed to be the most important thing to him. 

He turned to look at Stiles. “If you die because you’re an idiot, I’m gonna make you look like shit at your funeral.” He grabbed the coffee from Stiles’ hand and set it on the counter behind him. “Go change, we’re going to the hospital to visit your dad. McCall’s mom says you haven’t been in a while. We’ll be in the car.” 

“The Porsche only seats two,” Scott insisted. 

“You can go on your bike then,” Jackson snapped, moving towards the door. He walked up to Derek, who didn’t move out of his way, and glared at him for a few seconds. Derek just stared back before moving aside. 

Jackson walked past him, shouldering him roughly, and continued on his way out. He was a bit nicer passing Boyd, though that was likely because he hadn’t aimed a gun in his face. 

Scott followed quickly, and Derek heard footsteps pounding up the stairs before coming back down just as loudly. It was evidently Jackson getting his coat and shoes, because it took a few seconds before the two of them exited the house, the door slamming loudly behind them. 

When Derek turned back to Stiles, he’d sagged against the counter, looking exhausted despite having just woken up. 

“He’s going to make you look like shit for your funeral?” Derek questioned. 

Stiles waved the words away. “He’s going to school to be a make-up artist. Special effects, horror, blood and gore, that kind of shit. Scott wants to be a vet.” 

“Will they say anything?” Boyd asked. He hesitated before continuing, and Derek knew why when he finally did, turning to him sharply. “Should we leave?” 

“Nah, it’s fine. I’ll talk to them.” Stiles sighed and rubbed the back of his head. “A lot happened really quickly. I’ll figure it out and make sure they keep their mouths shut. They’re good guys, probably just didn’t appreciate being threatened. And Scott’s a little crazy when he’s sleep-deprived.” 

Boyd nodded once, glanced at Derek, then retreated. It was his call whether or not they’d leave anyway, and while Derek had already told the others they should _multiple times_ , they weren’t willing to leave without him.

And Derek wasn’t ready to go yet, selfish as that was. 

When it was just the two of them, Stiles still looking like he was trying to wake himself up and figure out what the fuck he was going to say, Derek moved forward a few steps, stopping about a foot away from him. 

“He has keys.” 

“Huh?” Stiles had been rubbing at his face, and he started when he looked up and found Derek _right there_. 

“Jackson. He has keys. To your house.” 

“Oh. Uh, yeah. A—bunch of people do, actually. Scott and Jackson are the only two of my friends who do, but dad gave a copy to a few of the people at the station. You know, just in case. Parrish, Tara, Val.” Stiles shrugged. “Small town, and this is the sheriff’s house. People don’t usually break in. You know, unless they’re idiots who think he has evidence locked away in his study and then shoot him when he comes home.” His expression turned sad then. 

Derek hesitated, then reached out, grabbing one of his shoulders and slowly pulling him in, then wrapped his arms around him, hugging him tightly. Stiles said nothing, and he didn’t move at first, then he raised his arms and returned the hug, holding Derek against himself.

He wanted to say something. He didn’t know what. Maybe insist everything would be okay, that the sheriff would wake up, that things would work out. But he didn’t honestly know that, and he’d been saying empty words ever since his first day there. He didn’t want to keep lying to Stiles when he didn’t honestly know how this was going to end. 

Stiles held on to him for a long time before finally clearing his throat and pulling away. Derek released him and took a step back. 

“Jackson’s kind of impatient,” Stiles said in way of explanation. “I should...” He motioned the kitchen doorway, then moved around Derek to head out. “You’ll be okay while I’m gone?” 

“I’ll survive somehow,” Derek said, forcing a small smile. 

Stiles snorted and rolled his eyes, and just as he was about to leave the kitchen, Derek stopped him. He didn’t mean to ask. It wasn’t his business, after all. 

But he couldn’t help it. 

“Why did he do that?” 

Stiles paused, one hand on the frame, and turned to look at him, confused. “Why did who do what?” 

“Jackson. Why did he just—climb into bed with you like that.” 

“Oh.” Stiles tapped the end of his fist lightly against the jamb, shrugging one shoulder and averting his gaze, like he was about to admit something he wasn’t happy about. “We’re just—Scott, Jackson and I have been friends for a long time. We’re comfortable with each other. And I’m...” He trailed off, wincing slightly before continuing, still avoiding Derek’s eye. “I kind of live off physical affection. I grew up kind of alone, so I take what I can get. Jackson likes to cuddle, and he knows I’m hurting. He probably figured I’d appreciate a bit of comfort.” He shrugged again, like it was no big deal.

But it kind of was. Because Stiles had never said anything. And Erica especially was _very_ touchy-feely, she’d just been hanging off the rest of them instead because she’d probably figured Stiles wouldn’t appreciate her draping herself all over him like she did with them. And Isaac could be pretty physical too, but he tended not to be because Kira shot him a lot, Boyd only liked it when Erica did it, and Erica was usually busy being all over someone else. 

Derek himself wasn’t really much of a physical affection kind of person, but Stiles was already the exception. It wasn’t like Derek hugged people regularly, but he would never tire of hugging Stiles, _especially_ if he needed it. 

When Stiles said nothing further, Derek knew he should leave it. Let it drop. Tell him thank you for explaining, just _anything_. 

Instead he said, “And why was it my name that came out when you woke up?” 

Stiles still wasn’t looking at him, still tapping his fist lightly against the doorframe. “I guess because you’re the first person to give me any kind of physical comfort since this whole mess started.” He glanced up at him then, smiling almost sarcastically. “Don’t think about it too much, Derek. It’ll hurt your little brain.” 

A loud horn blared from outside and Stiles turned to glance towards the front door before looking back at Derek. “I gotta go. Jackson is gonna get annoying. I’ll be back in like, an hour. Or two. Depends how long they hijack me for.” 

“Take your time,” Derek insisted. “They’re your friends. And John needs you more than I do right now.” 

Stiles nodded, lips pressed together, then tapped the frame one last time before turning to head upstairs. 

Derek saw the others had returned to the dining room at some point, and Boyd was standing in the entrance that led from the kitchen to the dining room. When Derek turned to look at him, Boyd was watching him silently. He didn’t say anything, but Derek knew what he was thinking. 

After two thousand years together, it was hard not to. 

Boyd knew Derek was falling, and falling _hard_.

And that was going to be a problem. 

* * *

Jackson and Scott were around more often than not during their week off school. Derek tried not to be annoyed about it, because they were Stiles’ friends, but he felt like Jackson especially knew that they weren’t leaving the house because whenever he showed up, he always dragged Stiles out of it. 

In a way, it was a good thing. Stiles needed some stability, not to mention normalcy. And he seemed more amenable to visiting his dad when he had people to go with, something Derek realized was a reason he hadn’t been going much since their arrival. 

Stiles didn’t like leaving the five of them alone at the house, just in case, but he also didn’t want to go to the hospital by himself. It occurred to Derek that Stiles had probably been forced to do that constantly back in January and the beginning of February. And considering what he’d said the first day Jackson and Scott had shown up, about growing up mostly alone, it kind of explained a lot about Stiles as a person. 

He’d made friends with someone his dad knew because Derek was probably one of the most constant people in his life. His dad obviously cared about him, Derek knew for a fact that he did, but John had a stressful job, not to mention the crazy hours he always had to pull. Stiles probably hadn’t spent a lot of time with him growing up, and it occurred to Derek that whenever he used to make jokes about Stiles being the dad, they really _did_ hit close to home because Stiles had basically raised himself. 

None of that was John’s fault, but Derek wished things could’ve been different for the two of them. Even now, Stiles was the one taking care of everything _for_ John. He’d been the one dealing with the bills and the mortgage until Derek had shown up. He was the one helping them with SilverCorp _years_ before he should even know anything about their condition. He was the one who had to hide how he was always feeling behind a mask because he didn’t want people to know when he was close to breaking. 

It wasn’t fair, and Derek hated it. But that was why he tried not to get annoyed at Jackson and Scott. At least his friends cared about him. They should have been off doing dumb young adult things, partying in Mexico, getting drunk with friends, just having a good time. Instead, both of them had come back home for their spring break specifically so they could spend it with their friend, who was hurting and lost and alone. 

Well, maybe not _alone_ right now, but they hadn’t known that. And as much as Derek knew Stiles appreciated having them all there, their distractions weren’t the same as what Jackson and Scott offered. 

And apparently having Stiles around really _did_ help, because the sheriff had regained consciousness. It was very brief, he wasn’t awake for long, but Stiles had been in the middle of talking about something to his unconscious form when he’d woken up and asked why he wasn’t at school. 

Stiles had started crying with relief when he recounted this to Derek after he got home. Because his dad had _woken up_ , and he was going to be okay. 

Eventually, anyway. His time in the land of consciousness had been short, but it was a good sign and the more often he woke up, the higher the chances that he would be fully conscious again soon. Nowhere close to being fit for release from the hospital, but at least being _conscious_ meant Stiles could stop worrying. 

It meant Derek could stop worrying, too. 

Stiles ended up going out to see a movie with Jackson and Scott their last night together. Jackson had an early flight out the following morning, and Scott was going back himself in the afternoon. Derek expected him to stay out all night with them, but he came home around ten and went to bed shortly afterwards. Derek figured he was trying to get accustomed to being alone again, even though the rest of them were still in the house with him. 

It wasn’t the same. 

The following morning, Derek knocked on his door to check in and make sure he was okay, but Stiles was back to being his loud, boisterous self, hiding everything behind his mask like he always did. Derek kind of hated that he felt like he couldn’t just admit when he was hurting, but it wasn’t his place to force him to. He just touched his shoulder on his way by, promised he would be there for him whenever he needed him, and then went to make breakfast while Stiles showered. 

Being around Stiles never got easier. Because every time he was beside him, talking to him, watching him, all he wanted was something he couldn’t have. 

He often thought about what had happened that first morning with Jackson. About someone sliding into bed with Stiles, and him automatically asking if it was Derek. Stiles had told him not to look into it too much, but it was impossible not to. Sometimes when he was lying awake in bed at night, it was all he could think about. 

And then he started wondering what it would be like. To just get up right now, go to Stiles’ room, slide into bed with him. Hold him, give him that physical comfort he wanted but had never once asked for. Just _be_ with him. 

But he couldn’t do that. Because eventually John would get better, and SilverCorp would get closer, and Derek would be gone. 

And then one day, Stiles would be gone, too. Except not the kind of gone that he could come back from. 

So Derek just buried the feelings deep, ignored them, tried not to think about them.

But they were there.

They were _always_ there. 

* * *

“What if we’re looking at this wrong.”

Derek glanced up from Gerard Argent’s file, having basically memorized it by now after reading it so many times. He knew none of them had really done anything useful in all these weeks reading the files, but he still had no idea what _to_ do aside from put a bullet in Gerard Argent’s brain. 

The cancer was taking too long, he wanted to take the fucker out now. 

“What?” Boyd asked when no one else did, all of them looking at Stiles.

Since the rest of his family had shown up, they’d taken all the seats on either side of the table, leaving only the ends open. Derek and Stiles had been forced to take up residence there, not that Derek was upset about having Stiles across from him like this. 

Actually, it was better this way. He was still right there, but not so close that Derek could touch him. It meant Derek could kind of keep himself under control and not do anything stupid, like try and grab his hand or blurt out that he was pretty sure he was in love with him or something. 

Not that the distance helped with that second part, but so far Derek had been good at keeping those emotions under wraps. 

“You guys keep saying that you don’t know what we’re looking for,” Stiles said, sweeping one hand out across the files with an impatient wave. “But what if it’s more you all know what lines you won’t cross?” 

“Meaning?” Derek asked, leaning back in his chair and crossing his arms. 

“I mean, I’ve heard you say it before,” Stiles said, motioning him. “Some of the people who work for SilverCorp are just innocent civilians who don’t know anything about you. They don’t know that they’re doing anything more than trying to make the world a better place. They’re just doing their jobs, trying to cure disease and all that. So what if you guys keep looking through all these files over and over again because all your primitive brains can think is ‘kill, kill, kill’ and you don’t wanna do that?” 

“Our brains aren’t primitive,” Boyd said with a sigh. 

“Isaac’s might be,” Kira cut in. 

When Isaac opened his mouth to retaliate, Derek held a hand out to him to silence him, raising his eyebrows at Stiles. “Your point, Stiles?” 

He shrugged expansively. “Well, what if there was another way? What I said a while back is true, it’s not like you can just get rid of a company once it’s this big, but if you think about it, Silvercorp has _dozens_ of locations across the country, all experimenting with different things. If you want to get them off your back, _really_ be rid of Gerard Argent once and for all, you can do that by crippling the company. Make him lose his source of revenue that is actively contributing to his ability to go after you. He loses that, then he has no choice but to give up. So instead of killing people, why not just go after the foundation itself? Destroy the small locations, sabotage the big ones, cut him off at the knees, and then he has nothing.”

That actually sounded like a decent plan. They’d never _tried_ to sabotage a huge pharmaceutical company before, but it wasn’t like they hadn’t crippled other operations in the past. Sure, it was mostly street drugs and traffickers, but aside from the differences in security—thugs versus alarms—it wasn’t _really_ that different in the grand scheme of things. 

And Stiles was right in that Gerard could only pour resources into finding them because he had enough money to _do_ it. If they started taking out his labs, his smaller locations, one by one, then they would essentially be choking the flow of funds he had access to. 

Gerard Argent might never truly _stop_ looking for them, but the chances of him _finding_ them without money was good odds for them. So even if they couldn’t fully be rid of him, at least they would be _safe_ from him. 

Derek glanced at Boyd, seeing him leaning back in his seat with his arms crossed, eyebrows down in thought. After a moment, he looked back at Derek, offering a small nod. “It could work,” he offered. 

“It’s still risky,” Kira said, because she was always the first to think about safety and exposure when it came to plans like this. “Any one of us going anywhere _near_ SilverCorp gives them the opportunity to capture us. And then what?” 

“That’s a potential risk in every job we take,” Boyd said calmly. Derek left it to him, because sometimes he needed the two of them to butt heads to determine the best course of action. “Exposure is always our main concern, but we’ve already _been_ exposed with them. They already know about us, what we are, what we can do.” 

“We’d be going in blind,” Kira insisted. “Even if we hit every single facility, we’d have no idea if we’re actually impacting the ones directly related to _us_. And if they have a low supply right now and one of us gets taken, their supply goes back up.” 

“We have no guarantee that Gerard Argent’s death will mean the end of this entire endeavour,” Boyd argued. “He is the threat right now, but even if Chris Argent is supposedly on our side, he has a daughter we know is not, and it’s just as likely she’d pick right back up where Gerard left off. Killing him will not end this, and killing everyone involved makes us no better than the people we fight against.” 

“We don’t have enough information,” Kira retorted. “They could have hundreds of locations, all of them different. How are we supposed to know when we’ve made enough of an impact? And how are we supposed to know what places we _really_ need to cripple versus the ones we should leave alone?” 

“I can get that,” Stiles cut in, making both Kira and Boyd’s heads snap in his direction. “I can get that information, find out which places are doing what. And detailed blueprints.” 

Kira gave him a weird look and Derek narrowed his eyes at him. 

“How?” he asked, because why did Stiles think he could pull up detailed blueprints of one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the country without any problems whatsoever. 

“Not important,” he said evasively, and before Derek could insist that, yes, it was _quite_ important, Stiles bulled on like he was hoping he could talk fast enough to make Derek forget what he’d said. “Point is, we can find out what places are doing what research. The legit ones we can like, save the files or whatever, donate them somewhere so that their actual attempts at curing diseases doesn’t go to waste, but the ones focussed entirely on you guys we can full on destroy. Like, blow them up at night kind of thing. Every company shuts down at some point, so it’s just about finding the best time to strike, get any security guards patrolling out of there, and then we move in and take the place down.”

Stiles slapped one hand against the table, grinning widely, and clearly pleased with this plan. 

The others stared at him for a long time before Boyd leaned over towards Derek, arms crossed and said, eyes still on Stiles, “Why does he keep saying ‘we’?”

Derek’s thoughts exactly, because he was _not_ letting Stiles anywhere _near_ SilverCorp. “You’re not coming,” he informed him. 

Stiles sputtered for a second. “Wha—why not? I can be useful!”

“You aren’t bulletproof,” Erica said with a sickeningly sweet smile. 

Stiles pointed a finger at her. “Technically speaking, neither are you.” 

“You’re still not coming,” Derek informed him. Stiles looked back at him, mouth opening to argue, but Derek cut him off. “You can help us plan, but you’re staying right here when hitting a target comes up. Understood?”

“But—”

“Understood?” he asked loudly. 

“Derek!”

“Stiles,” he said in answer, raising his eyebrows. 

The two of them stared at each other for a long while. Isaac was looking back and forth between them, seeming to find this amusing. He knew who was going to win, they all did. 

Derek would tie Stiles to a chair and lock him in the basement if he had to. 

Eventually, after a very long, tense stare-down Derek wasn’t going to lose—he was thousands of years older than Stiles, he had a _lot_ more patience—Stiles finally huffed angrily and fell back against his seat, crossing his arms like a scolded child and sliding a bit further down. 

“I fucking hate you.”

“No you don’t,” Derek countered. 

“I _do_ ,” Stiles insisted, fooling absolutely no one. 

Derek just smiled, shutting the folder in front of him. “As long as you understand.” He got to his feet and motioned for the table at large to do the same. “Come on, we’ve been at this for weeks. We’re about to get busier, so we’re done for today. Stiles,” he said, pointing at him. “You are going to _relax_ for the rest of the day. Whatever you’ve got up your sleeve for the locations and blueprints can _wait_ one day.” 

He rolled his eyes dramatically, but gave Derek a sarcastic double thumbs up before slapping both hands on the table and getting to his feet. He disappeared into the living room and the TV cut on a moment later. 

“That sounds like _Futurama_ ,” Isaac said with a grin, getting to his feet and moving to follow, then letting out a loud exclamation of anger when Stiles changed the channel. 

The rest of the table stood to head off as well, Kira squeezing Derek’s arm on her way past him to head into the kitchen. 

It felt weird, finally having a plan. It’d been a long time since they’d done a job. Six years apart, and then a few months with Stiles. They hadn’t done anything remotely close to this in what felt like forever. It was going to be nice going out there again, stretching their muscles, so to speak. 

He was glad Stiles had thought of this. It wasn’t that Derek hadn’t considered crippling the company, but more that it wasn’t as easy as it sounded. But Stiles had laid out so many good points that Derek actually felt like this could work. They wouldn’t be destroying any real research. Like he’d said, they could collect it and donate it somewhere. Maybe not right away, but in a few years, just to let the attacks die down and not risk a company being accused of being behind it. 

And if they destroyed all the samples SilverCorp had left belonging to them, it meant they had nothing. Gerard was still alive, but without anything from The Five, he wasn’t going to last long. And with money quickly running out once they got rid of his companies, it meant even if he _did_ survive through chemo, or his daughter ended up taking over, neither of them would be able to just pick up where he left off. 

They could actually do this. Get rid of SilverCorp once and for all. The company that had been after them since Stiles was a child. 

Exhaling slowly, hands braced on the table, Derek thought about what it would be like, to finally be rid of them. To be able to go back to what they’d been doing before the risk of capture had been hanging over them. 

The only downside to going back to how things were before was that it meant they would leave. They wouldn’t have a reason to stay, and Stiles... he would just be a voice on the other end of the line again. Growing older, having his own family, and eventually... 

Derek pushed away from the table, moving into the living room. Boyd and Erica weren’t there, and he knew Kira was still in the kitchen, so it was just Isaac and Stiles. Isaac had taken up residence in the recliner and Stiles was half-sprawled on the couch. They seemed to have come to an agreement on what to watch, because both were silent and actually watching the screen. 

When Derek turned to see what it was, he didn’t recognize it. Some kind of home renovation show. He wasn’t there for the show anyway, more for the company. 

He moved to sit down beside Stiles on the couch, and was glad he wasn’t so annoyed at him that he shifted away. 

The three of them watched the screen in silence, Derek again wishing that things could be different. 

* * *

When everyone retired for the night, Erica was the one who went into Stiles’ room and took his laptop. She insisted she needed it for research on a new outfit for their outings, but Derek knew she was thinking the same thing as he was.

Stiles was going to _immediately_ start researching SilverCorp, and it wasn’t tomorrow yet. He wanted Stiles to get some sleep, to not obsess. Stiles was really good at obsessing, and he wanted him to just be chill, be normal. Just for one night. 

So he was glad when Erica stole the laptop. 

Stiles was clearly unhappy about it, but he just bid them goodnight and went to bed. Derek thought maybe he’d sneak down later and use his dad’s computer in the study, but by the time he passed out around two-thirty, Stiles still hadn’t left his room, and may have _actually_ gone to sleep. 

Derek woke up again a little after seven. His body did that to him sometimes, either sleeping too much or not enough. It was of little consequence to him, so he just rolled out of bed without waking Kira or Isaac and headed out of the room. He showered and got dressed before heading downstairs, intent on making breakfast for everyone, but when he reached the kitchen, someone was already there. 

He paused in the doorway when he found Stiles at the stove, his hair mussed and wearing a loose shirt and plaid pyjama bottoms. He didn’t seem to realize anyone was there, because he was talking to himself, having some kind of quiet argument about something Derek couldn’t catch. 

It looked like he was making French toast, based on what Derek could see of the counter. He had another bowl of beaten eggs that he was either going to use for _more_ French toast, or to make scrambled eggs for Derek since he knew he didn’t like sweets in the morning. 

Stiles was considerate that way. 

He knew he should say something, make his presence known, but instead Derek just stood there, watching him. Stiles was like no one he’d ever met before, and Derek was kind of addicted to just watching him move. He always went over the top with every movement, but it got him where he needed to be in the end. 

Derek didn’t think he’d mind watching Stiles like this, again and again, every morning for the rest of eternity. He wondered if this was how Boyd and Erica felt, waking up, walking into the kitchen, seeing the one person they cared for most in the world every single day. 

He’d never envied them that before now. Not until he got a taste of what it could be like. 

“Jesus fuck!” Stiles said, almost dropping the plates he was holding. Derek hadn’t even noticed him turn. “God dammit. Why are you always trying to give me heart attacks?”

“Just making sure you’re awake,” Derek commented with a small smile, Stiles moving past him to put the plates down on the kitchen table. “Need help?” 

“Sure, if you wanna set the table.” Stiles motioned the plates before turning back to the stove. 

Derek moved away from the doorway to comply, grabbing the plates and setting them out. The table in the kitchen was too small to seat the six of them, but they didn’t all wake up at the same time. Usually whoever woke up came down to eat and the plates were just shuffled back around for the next round. 

Sometimes the last to wake didn’t even bother and just went straight into the dining room with their food. 

Turning to grab some cutlery, Derek laid out the four settings that he could, leaving two of the plates and additional sets of cutlery in the middle of the table, then went to grab himself a mug for some much needed coffee.

Stiles had moved over to where the mugs were to grab something, so Derek waited. When it looked like he was going to move, Derek took a step forward, but all Stiles had done was turn around with his mouth open, evidently about to ask him a question, so that Derek stepped _right_ into his personal space and Stiles froze. 

It wasn’t the first time they’d been this close. After all, Derek had hugged him before. Twice, in point of fact. 

But this was different. 

Because Derek knew, especially right in this moment, without a shadow of a fucking doubt, that he was in love with Stiles. And he knew that, in some way at least, Stiles also had feelings for him. 

And unlike when they were hugging, this time Stiles’ face was _right_ there. Derek could literally lean forward, close the distance. It would be so _easy_. It _should_ be easy.

Except it wasn’t. It wasn’t easy at all. 

Stiles’ lips were still parted, and Derek could feel every exhale against his own. He seemed to be breathing a little faster than normal, eyes dipping down to Derek’s mouth before moving back up.

Fuck. He was right there. He could do it, he could just—he could do it. 

Derek braced his hands on either side of Stiles’ body on the counter, moving infinitesimally closer to him, lips parting slightly. Still he didn’t kiss him, and Stiles didn’t move, like he was worried moving would scare Derek off. Like he felt as if he _couldn’t_ move. 

The French toast on the burner was starting to smoke, but neither of them paid it any attention, the tip of Derek’s nose brushing against Stiles’. 

Fuck. _Fuck_. 

“I’m too old for you,” he said, lips _so close_ to Stiles’ that they actually brushed against them. 

“Yeah, no shit,” Stiles said breathlessly. “You’re immortal, you’re too old for _everyone_.” 

“Yes,” Derek agreed. “But especially for you.” 

He could have this. He could. He _knew_ he could. It would be short, and it would be fleeting, and it would hurt. It would hurt _so much_. But he could have this. He should be allowed to have this. 

Except it wasn’t just him it would hurt. Eventually, it would also hurt Stiles. Not today, or tomorrow. Maybe not even a year from now. But one day, it would hurt Stiles like he’d never been hurt before. And Derek didn’t want to hurt him.

He couldn’t hurt him. 

It should be easy, but it really wasn’t. 

“I can’t,” he said quietly, and pulled away. He let his hands slide off the counter, backing up a step. 

He felt like shit the second he pulled back, because he knew that had hurt Stiles. It had hurt him, so it had _definitely_ hurt Stiles. But it was better to stop this now, before things went too far. Before they did something neither of them could come back from. 

Derek loved him. And he didn’t want to hurt him. Anymore than he already _had_ , at any rate. 

Stiles didn’t move for a long while and Derek just kept his gaze averted, like a coward. He waited, because he didn’t know what else to do. Leaving the room felt like a dick move, but he was pretty sure Stiles likely didn’t want him to stick around right this second. 

After an impossibly long silence, Stiles cleared his throat, bringing one hand up to his mouth. “I’m uh, you know I think we’re out of... I’m gonna just... Coffee. Something. Um, I’ll be back in like...” Stiles trailed off, and then turned and walked through the opening into the dining room to head back around the long way to the stairs, as if he didn’t want to walk that close to Derek by heading for the kitchen door. 

Derek heard him climb the stairs quickly, and in about ten seconds, he came back down. The lock snapped, the front door opened, and then slammed shut. 

“Fuck.” Derek walked over to the stove, grabbing the handle for the pan and moving it off the burner before turning it off. He stared down at the half-burned breakfast, and only stopped himself from turning to slam his fist into the closest wall because footsteps sounded behind him.

He wasn’t stupid enough to think it was Stiles, considering he’d left rather loudly—in his pyjamas even, _fuck_ —but he didn’t want to cause any property damage to the Stilinski household because he was a coward and an asshole. 

“What happened?” Boyd asked. 

Because of course it was Boyd. If anyone was going to know that exit was Derek’s fault somehow, it was Boyd. 

“Nothing,” Derek lied, grabbing for the spatula Stiles had been using and flipping the charred toast over. He’d eat this one, whatever. Wasn’t like he was going to taste anything anyway, not after what had just happened. 

He wished he’d just waited. Waited for Stiles to finish up whatever he was doing before going for that mug. If he hadn’t moved in so God damn close, they wouldn’t have ended up in that position. Derek wouldn’t have been _tempted_. 

Stiles deserved better than him, anyway. He deserved to live a long, happy life with someone who didn’t have to run away every other day. Who didn’t have to stay hidden, and out of sight. Someone he could grow old with, go out on dates with. Someone who just... was normal. Normal like Stiles was.

No one deserved him, no one would ever be good enough for him, but that didn’t mean Derek didn’t still want the world for him. 

“That didn’t sound like nothing,” Boyd said, moving up beside Derek and leaning sideways against the fridge, watching him intently. “What happened?” 

Derek didn’t want to have this conversation. He really didn’t. But he knew Boyd wasn’t going to let it go, and Stiles was going to be different when he got back. The others were going to notice, so it wasn’t like it was going to be a secret. 

“I was just stupid and thought I could have something that I can’t,” he said, moving the French toast around in the pan for the bottom to brown up at least a little. He could have one burned side and one undercooked side. It’d even out or something. 

“Do you mean Stiles?” Boyd asked after a moment. 

Derek turned to look at him and his friend shrugged in answer.

“You think I haven’t noticed? The way you watch him? Your eyes are always following him, tracking his movements. And you came. You knew it was risky, that it could be a trap, that coming was a bad idea, but you did it anyway. You broke all your own rules to come here, so I knew even before I saw you with him that there was something.” Boyd inspected his face for a few silent moments, reading him easily after so many years together. “If you want him, why aren’t you letting yourself have him? It’s pretty clear he wants you. He’s not subtle.” 

“It’s not fair,” Derek argued, shoving the pan away from himself angrily. It scratched loudly along the burner, but didn’t go far. “How much time would we _honestly_ have together? Right now? A week? Two? And then what? We leave, travel, go elsewhere. How often am I going to come back here? How often will I _actually_ see him? And he’s supposed to, what, _wait_? Just sit here waiting for me whenever I _can_ come back? And how long before he starts resenting me? Before he looks in the mirror and sees himself aging, while I’m _stuck_ like this.” Derek motioned his face angrily. “Forever twenty-five in body, not aging a day, never dying, never sick. What happens when he’s old and weak, and I’m _still_ twenty-five and healthy?” 

“You don’t get to make that decision for him, Derek,” Boyd said on a sigh. “If you both want this, what does it matter how long it’s for? You of all people should know what it’s like to live a life of regret. And can you honestly say you won’t regret not _trying_ with him? When all is said and done, and he dies, are you going to be _glad_ that you didn’t at least have one moment where you could just be normal with him? Because once he’s gone, he’s _gone_ Derek.” 

“It’s easy for you,” Derek snapped, motioning towards the kitchen door. “You have Erica! She’s never going to go anywhere! She’s always been there, and she always _will_ be! But I can’t _have_ that with Stiles! I can only have right now, and that’s not enough!” 

“It _is_ enough,” Boyd argued. “Derek, one moment is _enough_.”

“But it wouldn’t _be_ one moment,” Derek said, almost desperately. “Sese, one with him isn’t enough! I want _all_ of it, and I just—I can’t. It’ll hurt him. It’ll hurt me. When I lose him—it’ll be worse. And if he’s holding on to me, if he’s _waiting_ for me, he won’t _live_. He’ll just spend all his time waiting for me, and I don’t want that. I want him to be happy.” 

“Derek—”

“Just leave it,” he snapped, shifting to grab the pan again and turning towards the table, glaring at Boyd. “Let it go. We do the job. We take down SilverCorp, and then we go. We’ve taken enough from this family. When this is over, we’re gone.” 

He heard Boyd let out a deep, aggrieved sigh when he moved to the table to dump the burnt French toast onto a plate. When he turned to head back for the stove, he saw Kira standing in the corridor, leaning back against the wall with her arms crossed. Their eyes locked for a brief moment before she pushed off the wall and turned her back on him without a word. 

Derek ignored her silent rebuke and went back to the stove. 

* * *

He knew the others were all well aware of what had happened. Either they’d overheard it themselves, or they’d been told. No one brought it up though, and when Stiles came back after almost an hour, he was back to normal. 

Stiles was good about hiding his hurt behind a mask, something Derek had grown accustomed to in the weeks he’d been around him. 

Derek didn’t know how to act around him, because things felt different. He knew that was his fault, but he didn’t know how to fix it. Apologizing felt mean when considering what had happened, but ignoring it felt cowardly. Derek chose the latter, because he could admit to himself that it was what he was. 

They occupied themselves for the rest of the day planning for their first SilverCorp hit. Stiles was in his room for the majority of it, which Derek wasn’t surprised about, and the rest of them took inventory of their weapons in the basement so as not to be seen by prying eyes. They didn’t want Parrish to show up and notice the arsenal, not that they actually had that much. 

It had been difficult getting their weapons in and out of the country, so nobody had shown up in Beacon Hills with very much, and they discussed the possibility of stopping somewhere to load up. Depending on where the closest SilverCorp location was, they may have a place nearby where they could regroup and grab some things they needed. 

“We shouldn’t start with the closest place,” Kira argued. “If we hit all the ones within a specific region, they’ll be able to pinpoint where we are. We should make it more sporadic, hit one end of the country, and then the other. Try to randomize it so they can’t discern a pattern.” 

“Not a bad idea,” Boyd agreed, looking at Derek. “Lots of travel, but it’ll keep this place safe.” 

Derek knew he meant _Stiles_ but he didn’t say it. He didn’t have to anyway. Derek wasn’t going to let anything come back here, he wasn’t going to risk Stiles’ life, or his father’s. 

“Once we have locations, we can start planning more concretely,” he agreed. “We’ll start on the east coast, try and steer clear of Massachusetts, and...” He trailed off when he saw the four facing him staring past him. 

Frowning, Derek turned. 

Stiles was halfway down the basement stairs, eyes on the ground and face a blank mask. Derek felt his heart hit his feet. 

“Stiles?” Boyd asked, because Derek couldn’t get the name out. 

He looked up at them, one hand clenched tightly around the railing of the old stairs. He didn’t keep eye contact with Derek for long, choosing instead to focus on Isaac beside him. 

“Dad’s awake,” he said quietly. “Melissa just called. He’s—I mean, he’s been awake on and off before, but she says he’s more lucid now. I’m gonna...” He thumbed over his shoulder without finishing, clearly saying he was going to head out. 

“I’ll come with you,” Derek said before thinking about it. 

It only occurred to him after he’d spoken that Stiles might not _want_ him to come along. That maybe he wanted to see his dad alone. That the last person he wanted with him right now was Derek. 

If that was true though, he didn’t say anything. He just nodded once and said, “Yeah okay. Um, let me grab my keys.” 

Derek could feel Boyd’s eyes on him while he headed for the stairs, Stiles already having moved back up into the kitchen. He ignored him though and just headed up, moving towards the front entrance and upstairs to grab his jacket and a hat. 

By the time he was heading back down the stairs, pulling the leather jacket on, Stiles was crouched by the door tying his shoes. Derek just yanked his own on quickly so as not to delay him and Stiles waited for a second to be sure he was ready, then opened the door. 

It was already dusk outside, and the street didn’t have many lights, so it was easy for Derek to get from the door to the Jeep. He paused when he saw Stiles staring out towards the end of the driveway and realized Erica’s red car was boxing him in again. She went out on occasion with Boyd or Kira to get things, mostly just to get out of the house, but she tended to park right behind the Jeep more often than not, even when Derek told her to park on the road. 

Parking in the driveway made it obvious someone unknown was at Stiles’ house. Parking on the road could mean the car belonged to someone in _any_ of the houses. Also, it kind of trapped Stiles, since it blocked off his exit with the Jeep. 

“We can take the Camaro,” Derek offered. 

“Sure.” 

Derek moved to the end of the Jeep and around the red car, crossing the street without checking for oncoming cars. It was a pretty quiet street in general, and he’d have noticed headlights if a car was approaching. 

Unlocking the door, he climbed in and started the car, Stiles getting into the passenger seat and buckling himself in. Derek eased away from the curb a moment later and started heading towards the hospital, trusting Stiles to give him directions as needed. He hadn’t been enough times to memorize the route. 

Stiles was quiet beside him, which was making Derek a bit uncomfortable. He didn’t know what to say, because he wasn’t sure about this reaction. He’d thought Stiles would be happy his dad was awake, but he seemed... off. 

“What’s wrong?” he asked, despite his better judgement. 

“Wrong?” 

“You seem upset.” Derek glanced at him briefly before facing forward again. 

“I guess I’m just waiting for something to go wrong,” he admitted, looking out his window. “When she called, I was happy, but now my brain keeps thinking about everything that can still happen. What if he has memory problems because of the shot to the head? What if he’s lost his mobility? What if his injuries don’t heal properly? What if he’s mad at me?”

“Mad at you?” Derek asked, confused. “Why would he be mad at you?” 

“I don’t know.” Stiles rubbed at his face. “I don’t know, I’m just—I’m worried. About nothing. About everything. It feels like I haven’t spoken to dad in forever and I guess I just don’t want him to be disappointed in me.” 

“He could never be disappointed in you,” Derek said softly. 

He saw Stiles look at him out of the corner of his eye, but kept his gaze focussed on the road. 

“Yeah,” Stiles said quietly, slouching a bit in his seat. “You missed a turn, by the way.” 

Derek let out a small laugh. “I don’t know this town very well.” 

“Sorry,” Stiles said, offering his own short, huffed laugh. 

Derek doubled back and turned where Stiles motioned for him to. They made it to the hospital relatively quickly, Derek parking near the back. There were a lot of cars since visiting hours were still in effect, but more people meant less notice, so that was kind of a good thing. 

They both signed in at the front, Derek using his previous name again, and when they got their visitor’s badges they headed up to the sheriff’s room. Derek kept his head down, but he heard Melissa’s voice when they neared the nurse’s station. 

“He just finished eating, so he should be in good spirits.” 

“Hope you didn’t give him anything he shouldn’t have,” Stiles said lightly, and Melissa laughed insisting that was impossible when it came to hospital food. Derek assumed there was a joke there, but didn’t ask. He just followed after Stiles while they walked down the corridor. 

Once they reached the sheriff’s door, the cop previously stationed outside it no longer present—likely removed once William Barrow had been caught—Derek touched Stiles’ arm lightly. 

“I can wait out here.”

“No, it’s fine. You should—he’ll want to meet you. You should come in.” 

“Are you sure?” 

“Yeah, it’s fine,” Stiles promised. 

Derek wanted to argue, insist he’d really only come to keep Stiles company, but Stiles opened the door before he could say anything else so he obediently followed him into the room, shutting the door behind himself. 

There was silence for a few seconds, Stiles just standing a few feet from the bed, staring. It was like he was waiting for something, his entire frame tense, hands clenched into fists. Derek didn’t understand, but before he could reach out, ask what was wrong, a gravelly voice said. 

“You look good, kiddo.” 

It was like a wire had snapped. Stiles closed the distance so fast Derek blinked and he was suddenly at the bed, sitting on the edge of it and hugging his dad so desperately that it physically hurt Derek to watch.

John had his arms wrapped around Stiles, various tubes and wires still connected to him. He had his eyes closed, cheek pressed against Stiles’ temple, and the most relieved look on his face. He didn’t look as old as he had the first time Derek had seen him, and having his son in his arms seemed to make him grow younger by the second. 

“Hey,” John said softly, rubbing one hand up and down Stiles’ back. “You’ve still got me, kiddo. You’ve still got me.” 

Derek hadn’t realized until then that Stiles was crying, hands clenched in his dad’s hospital gown and face buried in his neck. He started to take a step forward, wanting to reach out to comfort him, but forced himself not to. Stiles needed his dad right now. And he had him. 

After three months, he _had_ him. 

It felt invasive to be standing there by the door, watching such a private, intimate moment between John and his son, but at the same time he was glad for it. Derek didn’t remember his father, not really. Bits and pieces of what he looked like, but nothing more than that. He remembered that he loved him, he remembered that he was a good man, but it had been so long ago that little more had survived in his memory. 

He’d never had the chance to see his father recover from something like this. For Derek, his father was there, and then he suddenly wasn’t. He was glad that hadn’t happened to Stiles. He was glad that his dad had come back from this.

Derek didn’t know what he’d have done if John hadn’t woken up. He didn’t know how he’d help Stiles.

It seemed to take a few moments for John to realize that they weren’t alone. He was still hugging Stiles tightly, one hand rubbing up and down his back, but when he opened his eyes and shifted his head more comfortably against his son’s head, he caught sight of Derek hovering awkwardly at the door and blinked, startled. 

“You lost, son?” 

Derek had never been so happy to hear him call him ‘son’ in his life. 

Stiles sat up slightly, confused, and then seemed to remember Derek was there. He straightened fully on the edge of the bed, using his hoodie sleeves to wipe at his face and motioning over his shoulder absently without looking. 

“Oh yeah, that’s uh, that’s Derek.” 

John shifted his gaze to look at Stiles, and then slowly looked back over at Derek. 

He moved forward a few steps, suddenly feeling uncomfortable, and reached up to take his hat off. They were in a closed room with no cameras, and this was one of the Stilinskis. Derek could afford to show him who he really was. 

“It’s nice to finally meet you,” he said softly. 

John’s eyes inspected his face for a long while before moving down and then back up. Derek wondered if maybe he was looking for something that screamed ‘immortal.’ He wouldn’t find it, Derek didn’t look any different from anyone else. 

He just didn’t age or die. 

“Derek.” John still had one hand gripping his son’s arm, like he didn’t want to let him go, but he held the other out. “It’s nice to put a face to the name.” 

Derek reached out to shake his hand, nodding once in agreement. It was nice to see John awake, to actually have a real face to face conversation. Not that they’d had one, but it was still nice. 

“How long have you been here?” John asked, releasing his hand. 

“I came mid-February,” he admitted. “I didn’t know you’d been hurt. I found out when I called and Stiles answered.” 

John’s hand tightened around Stiles’ arm then, eyes shifting back to his son. “I’m sorry, Stiles.” 

“For what? Not like you asked to get shot.” Stiles let out a small scoff, but he was still wiping at his face with the sleeve of his hoodie. “Sure took you long enough to wake up.” 

“I wasn’t going to leave you behind, you still forget to separate your whites from your colours when you do laundry,” John insisted with a fond smile, thumb rubbing lightly at his son’s arm. 

“I wanted pink shirts anyway,” Stiles argued. 

John laughed, then winced, the action obviously hurting him. Stiles gripped his shoulder tightly, but didn’t say anything and after a moment, the sheriff managed a small smile. 

“It’s good to see you, Stiles.” 

“You too,” he said quietly. “Fuck dad, I was really scared.” 

“Hey.” He reached up with his free hand, patting Stiles’ cheek lightly. “I’m not going anywhere.” 

“Good.” 

John smiled again, patting Stiles’ cheek a few more times before letting his hand drop. “Any idea when I’m getting out of here?” 

“Dad, you were shot. Multiple times.” 

“That was a while ago, I should be good to go.” 

Stiles rolled his eyes, head almost going with it, but he managed to refrain. “You’re not leaving for a while, I can tell you that much. But now that you’re awake, they might move you to a rehab floor. Doctor said you’ll need to do some physical therapy for a while, but I don’t think they’re gonna let you out of here any time soon.” 

“I’m perfectly fine,” John argued. Stiles gave him a look and John sighed. “Stiles, I’m fine.” 

“You got shot four times, one of which was in the _head_ , dad. You’re not fine.” 

“Can you at least find out how long they plan to keep me here?” 

Stiles’ head _did_ roll this time along with his eyes, but he obediently stood, moving towards the door. “You’re not getting out of here any time soon,” he called back opening the door and exiting the room. He shut it again right away, probably knowing Derek wanted to stay hidden. 

He put his hat back on just in case, turning back to John once the door was firmly shut. The man was looking at him, a small smile on his face. 

“I’ll be honest, I didn’t think I’d ever meet you in person.” 

Derek nodded uncomfortably, moving a few steps so he could take a seat in the chair beside the bed. “I came for Stiles. He wasn’t... You were in the hospital, and he didn’t know what to do. He was getting overwhelmed. I just wanted to help.” 

“Melissa told me,” John said. “About the bills. Son—”

“It’s too late to get mad,” Derek cut in. “I have the money. What else am I going to do with it? You needed help, and Stiles was a mess. I had to do something.”

John just smiled, waiting for him to finish. “All I was going to say was thank you.” 

“Oh.” Derek was so used to John getting _mad_ about the money that hearing a thank you was surprising. “You’re welcome.” 

John nodded once, then shifted his gaze towards the door. “How’s he been? Honestly?” 

Derek sighed, shaking his head. He leaned forward, elbows on his thighs and shrugged. “I don’t know. He’s really good at hiding when things are upsetting him. He was bad at first, back when I first arrived. But once most of the money situation got resolved, it was easier for him to hide his concerns. I know he’s been worrying about you constantly, but he’s not very open about how he’s feeling in general.” 

“Yeah,” John said quietly with a sigh of his own. “He’s been like that for a long time. Thinks he needs to shoulder everything on his own. I’m surprised he asked you for help.” 

“He didn’t. I kind of didn’t give him a choice.” 

“I’m glad you were there for him.” John reached out to squeeze his arm once, then pulled his hand back. “Thank you for coming for him.” 

“Anything for him,” Derek said honestly. He turned his head slightly when he heard movement by the door, but it was just someone walking past so he faced John again. “He was acting a bit weird on the way here.” 

“Weird?” John asked, frowning. “In what way?” 

“Scared? Or more worried, I guess. He thought you’d be mad at him.” 

Derek wished he hadn’t said anything, because John’s expression turned sad then. He reached up to rub at his mouth, seemed surprised to find stubble, but he continued anyway. “Stiles’ mother... she started to lose herself. Near the end. She said some things to him before she passed. Things she didn’t mean. Things I _know_ she didn’t mean. But Stiles was just a kid. Things like that stay with you. I think... he was expecting the same reaction from me. I think he was bracing himself for the pain all over again.” 

Hearing that explained a lot about Stiles’ reaction. The way he’d been at the house, the way he’d been in the car, his hesitance when they’d walked into the room. It made Derek sad to hear, but he was glad John had shown Stiles there was nothing to worry about.

“How long are you staying?” 

Derek focussed on John again and winced. “I don’t know. We were going to stay as long as you were here, but we can go if that’s what you’d prefer.” 

“We?” John asked. “You’re all here?” 

“Yeah. We’re staying at your place. Two of us—kind of took over your room.” He winced. “Sorry about that.” 

John let out a small laugh, then winced and brought one hand to his chest. “Not like I’ve been using it.”

“We can go. If you want us to.” 

“No.” John shook his head. “No, I think having you here is good for Stiles. If it’s safe for you to stay, stay as long as you want.” 

“Thank you.” 

“Nothing to thank me for, son.” He eyed him for a few seconds, hand still against his chest. “What’s been happening with SilverCorp?” 

“We actually just started planning something.” Derek leaned back in the chair, crossing his arms and splaying his legs. “We’ve been trying to think up a plan for a while that didn’t involve, well, killing everyone.” He saw John snort at that. “Stiles actually gave us the idea.” 

“Does he know?” John asked. He didn’t have to elaborate, they both knew what he meant. 

“Yeah. We had to tell him. He was kind of putting the pieces together on his own.” 

“Kid’s always been too smart for his own good.” 

“Yeah.” Derek smiled. “It’s a little annoying.” 

“Try raising him,” John said with a smile.

Derek laughed as the door opened again, Stiles coming back and shutting it behind himself. 

“Like I said, you’re not going anywhere old man.” 

“Who are you calling old?” John grunted. “I’m not the oldest person in the room.” 

John looked pointedly at Derek, and he just smiled, shaking his head. He was glad he got to meet him in person. He was glad he’s met the Stilinski family, even if he knew he was hurting Stiles just by existing. That was the selfish part of him talking. 

“Melissa says the doc’s gonna come by to talk to you in the morning, but you’ve got a long way to a full recovery. They’re gonna keep you here for a few days, and if all goes well, they’ll move you down to rehab. You’re gonna be an in-patient for a while down there, and have some more tests and physical therapy before they can release you. Even then, she says you’re gonna be off work for a while.” 

“Aw hell,” John said with a sigh, hand rubbing lightly at his chest, as if the injury was hurting him right then. “Guess those friends of yours can keep my room for a while longer.” 

“I’ll make sure it’s still in one piece when you want it back,” Derek promised. 

John nodded, eyes shifting past him to Stiles. “Would you mind if I had some time alone with my son?” 

“Of course.” Derek stood. “I didn’t mean to impose.” 

“Not imposing, son.” John held one hand out again for Derek to shake. “Hope I see you again. Don’t run off without saying goodbye.” 

“I won’t,” he promised. Once he released John’s hand, he turned to head for the door, pausing beside Stiles. “I’ll wait for you in the car.” 

“Thanks,” he said quietly. 

Derek nodded, then left the room to head back down to the Camaro. 

He expected this to be a rather long conversation, but he had nothing but time. He could wait. 

For Stiles, he could wait forever. 

* * *

Stiles wasn’t around for the next few days. Well, not as much as he had been, at least. Derek didn’t mind, and he didn’t blame him. He was spending time with his dad, and it was clear he wanted to be around whenever the doctors spoke to John because the sheriff was really bad at taking care of himself. 

Derek had witnessed that first-hand considering he’d insisted he was fine to head home after basically waking up. So he could understand why Stiles wanted to be there for all the conversations so that his dad couldn’t lie to him. 

He knew Stiles was still looking into the SilverCorp locations for them, though. Derek overheard him talking to Isaac one morning about how he was getting close to having a full list of all the locations and head honchos at each. That meant he probably wasn’t sleeping very much.

While they waited, Kira mentioned that they needed more gear and weapons, and that they shouldn’t wait until the last minute to stock up. Derek didn’t disagree with her, so Erica and Boyd headed out that afternoon. They figured it might be a good idea for them to find a place outside of town—not too far, just a small place so they could store some things somewhere nearby. They didn’t want to set up an armoury inside the sheriff’s house, that might look bad if someone happened to show up while they were gone. 

Stiles would have to explain why he had so many weapons, and being the sheriff’s son wouldn’t exactly cut it, especially if they bought things like rocket launchers. 

Derek hated rocket launchers, they were bulky and hard to transport. But they _were_ useful. 

By the time they got back, the only thing they were waiting on was Stiles. He insisted he was close, and Derek knew he was staying up late working on it, but Derek still had no idea how he was supposed to get them all the information he’d promised. He suspected maybe Stiles had bitten off more than he could chew and didn’t want to admit it. 

He was proven wrong when he headed up the stairs with a plate of food since Stiles hadn’t come down for lunch, and walked into the room to Stiles thrusting both fists in the air in triumph. 

“Fuck yeah!” 

“What did you find?” 

“Jesus!” Stiles flailed and almost fell out of his chair, but managed to grab at his desk before falling over, turning to Derek and scowling. “Seriously, can you _stop_ doing that to me? I swear, you’re trying to give me a heart attack so you can take over my room. I know it’s nice, but it’s mine.” 

Derek rolled his eyes but chose not to comment, handing over the food. Stiles made a sound of interest at what he found on the plate, taking it and shovelling a bite into his mouth. Derek was _pretty sure_ he said thank you, but it was hard to tell around all the food. 

“What did you find?” he asked, crossing his arms and hovering over Stiles while staring at his screen. He frowned, not entirely sure he understood what he was looking at.

“Mm.” Stiles chewed faster and wiped at his chin with one hand when some sauce dripped down onto it. Derek made sure not to watch him do it, because he’d be focussing on his mouth. “I got a list of every location they have, but the best part is that some of them were showing restricted research and I just managed to unlock those ones, so I know which ones are doing what. Some are about you, but some are doing a lot of nasty shit, including creating biochemical warfare for private investors, so that’s sort of a huge win.” 

Derek scowled, not liking that. “Also explains where Gerard’s getting all his money.” 

“Yup. People be that way. Assholes.” Stiles shoved another bite of food into his mouth, turning to glance at his screen. “Some are legit, though. Like, a few of them. Not as many as I was hoping, but Argent’s clearly a bad dude, so can’t say I’m surprised.”

He wasn’t wrong, so Derek just nodded, eyes still on the screen. He could see that Stiles had a lot of programs open on his taskbar, most of them with names he’d never seen before. Frowning, it occurred to him that Stiles had just said he’d ‘unlocked’ the restricted locations, which had Derek wondering how _exactly_ he’d gotten this information _to_ ‘unlock.’ 

“How did you get all this?” he asked, Stiles spooning the last of his food into his mouth. 

“Oh, you know,” he said evasively, avoiding Derek’s eye while setting his plate on the edge of his desk on top of that morning’s bowl of cereal. It still had some milk in it, which Derek was planning on taking downstairs so the room didn’t start smelling. “Magic.” 

Derek gave him a look, which Stiles evidently caught out of the corner of his eye, because he glanced up at him and eyebrowed back. 

“What, so you can be immortal, but magic can’t be real?” he demanded, throwing one hand up in disbelief. “You’ve kind of opened up a whole new spectrum of possibility. Is time-travel a thing now, too? What about like, successful human cloning? Sure that’s more scientific, but I mean, there’s gotta be _some_ kind of explanation for what happened to you, right? Like, radiation?” 

“Stiles,” Derek said curtly before he could get on a roll. Stiles was very good at distracting him out of being suspicious. 

It was kind of annoying. 

“I’m just sayi—”

“Stiles,” he cut in again. 

Stiles stared at him for a few seconds, then sighed explosively and leaned back in his chair, which creaked loudly. It was probably pretty old, based on how worn out it looked. “I hacked it.” 

Derek felt every muscle in his body tense up at those words and he grabbed at Stiles’ closest arm urgently, feeling bile rising in his throat. “You _what_?!” 

“Ow! Dude!” Stiles grabbed at Derek’s hand and twisted his fingers, forcing him to let go. When he did, Stiles scowled and rubbed at his arm. “Can you chill? It’s fine.” 

“It’s not _fine_ , Stiles! They can find you!” 

“Will you relax? I have literally been doing this for years. If the government hasn’t come banging on my door for the things I’ve found out, SilverCorp sure isn’t going to show up. I don’t think they have the same resources as the White House.” He grinned at Derek, leaning back a bit more comfortably in his seat. “Did you know that the head of the FBI is into hentai anime? He downloads it at work a lot. You’d think he’d be smarter about where he’s downloading things.” 

“Stiles, I’m serious!” 

“So am I, someone who works there should really have more forethought.” 

Derek gave him another unimpressed, _very angry_ look. Stiles just stared back at him for a moment before rolling his eyes dramatically at him. 

“Derek, I promise, I know what I’m doing. Don’t worry. Literally _no one_ at SilverCorp can trace this back to me, I’ve been doing this for years. I basically grew up with a computer super-glued to my hands, I’m not from the stone age like you.” He motioned Derek with one hand and a scoff. 

“Bronze age,” Derek said automatically, without really thinking about it. 

The second the words were out, he wanted to take them back. Because he sometimes forgot how smart Stiles was, and he didn’t _actually_ want him to know how old he was. He hoped Stiles would just take it as a joke, ignore it, move on. 

“Oh haha, hilarious,” he said sarcastically, and for a second Derek thought maybe it had worked, that he’d mistaken it for a joke and would drop it. But then he paused, eyes shunted to the side, and widening. Fuck. “Wait, are you serious?”

“Stiles,” Derek started, exasperated. 

“Holy shit, _really_?” Both hands flew to Stiles’ hair, and he could tell he was mentally calculating things in his head. “That’s—how old _are_ you?!”

“Stiles,” Derek said again. “You said there were some locations doing other things, what did you find?” 

“You can’t just drop something that _huge_ on me like that and _not_ expect questions!” Stiles insisted, staring at him in awe. 

Derek hated that look. He knew Stiles was just surprised, but he still really hated seeing it on his face. “My name wasn’t enough of a hint for you?” Derek asked with a sigh. 

“I mean, it just sounded _Greek_! I didn’t know it was meant to be like, _ancient_ Greek!” Stiles was giving him a slow once-over, as if he could answer all his own questions by staring hard enough. “How old are you?” he asked again. 

“Old,” Derek replied. 

“Dude seriously, how old are you?” 

“Old,” he said again, more curtly. “Stiles. What did you find?” 

When Stiles opened his mouth again, probably to continue pestering him for information, Derek turned sharply when he heard another voice at the door, Boyd stepping into the room. 

“Considering how long I’ve known him, and what I know about him, he’s around thirty-three hundred years old.” 

“Holy _fucking_ shit, _really_?!” Stiles demanded, tugging at his hair like he was going to rip it right off his head. 

Great, now Stiles knew he was over three thousand years old. Perfect. 

He was sure Stiles didn’t _mean_ anything by his next comment. Derek was positive he was just saying it because it was true, but the words still stung when they were thrown back in his face. 

Not that he had any right to be upset. 

“Fuck me, you really _are_ too old for me! Holy shit, oh my _God_!” 

Derek tried not to let it bother him, but the glare he shot Boyd was probably a _little_ more heated than he’d originally intended. Boyd either didn’t notice—he probably did—or didn’t care—which was more likely. He just shrugged while moving up beside the pair. 

“You know as well as I do that he wasn’t going to let it drop until he got an answer.” He wasn’t wrong, but Derek was still annoyed about it. “Stiles,” Boyd said, trying to get his attention again since it looked like Stiles was counting something on his fingers. _What_ he was counting, Derek had no idea, but his brain looked like it was smoking with how fast it was going. “What did you find?” Boyd asked. 

“Huh?” Stiles looked up at them both, seemed to start at the sight of them, like he’d forgotten they were there, and then looked back at his computer. “Oh. Right. That.” 

Stiles turned back fully to his computer and began typing while explaining what he’d found. In total it looked like there were twenty-seven smaller research locations, with three bigger manufacturing hubs. They also had two headquarters at either end of the country, with the larger one being in Massachusetts, which was where Gerard spent most of his time. 

Stiles said ‘most’ because apparently he worked out of a home office in New York whenever he could, though his daughter Kate was almost always at the Massachusetts office. Apparently his son was in charge of the smaller satellite office in Washington state, which helped explain how he and John had touched base. They were in the same time zone. 

They didn’t go into too much detail right then, because they needed to ensure the whole team was aware of the plan and what to expect—Stiles mentioned security was going to be a bitch—but Derek was glad to have so much information. 

He was still pissed Stiles had hacked SilverCorp’s servers for it, but it was already done and getting mad about it wasn’t going to undo it. He just had to hope Stiles was right and that he wasn’t going to get caught.

If SilverCorp showed up and took Stiles, Derek didn’t know _what_ he’d do. Something stupid, probably. 

“This is good information,” he said, quietly impressed but visibly angry. He didn’t like Stiles putting himself at risk like this, especially since they were going to be leaving him alone soon. “Can you print everything out so we can talk to the others?” 

Stiles turned his chair around to stare at Derek, leaning back and folding his hands together on his stomach. “No.” 

Derek stared at him, glanced at Boyd, then focussed back on him. “What do you mean ‘no’?” 

“I mean ‘no,’ you wanna hear it in Spanish? _No_. How about French? _Non_. I can also say it in German. _Nein_.” 

“Stiles,” Derek said, exasperated, but he continued before Derek could get any further. 

“If I print all of this out for you right now, sure we’ll go downstairs, we’ll talk strategy, you guys will figure out how to proceed, all that fun stuff.” Stiles waved one hand impatiently before returning it to fold against the other on his stomach. “And then you’ll leave. And because you have everything, _everything_ , you’re gonna take all of it, tell me to be careful, that you’ll be _back_ , and then you’ll never come back.” Stiles gave him a pointed look. “If you have everything, you’re going to take it and run, and I’ll never see you again. You’ll never visit, you’ll never call, you’ll just disappear like you never existed. So, no.” He held up one hand again, two fingers up. “I will give you _two_ locations at a time. You tell me how you want to play this, if you want two in the same area or further apart. You give me geographical locations, and I’ll choose which sites to hit. When you’re done, you come _back_ ,” Stiles pointed at the ground in front of him, “and we can discuss and choose two more. _That_ is how this is going to work.” 

Derek stared down Stiles, but even as he did he knew it wouldn’t work. Sometimes he forgot how frustratingly _smart_ Stiles was. Of _course_ he knew that the second SilverCorp went down, Derek was going to disappear. He’d already made it clear he didn’t think what they had was good for either of them, despite how much he _wanted_ it, so of course Stiles was going to clue in to the fact that Derek wanted to get the information and leave before he caused any _more_ harm than he already had. 

Stiles, the little shit, looked _very_ pleased with himself, and Derek already knew that there was no winning this. Stiles had all the information, and even if Derek wrestled him out of the chair right now so he could get it all printed, he was sure Stiles would find a way to stop him. 

So they were doing it _his_ way, or not at all. 

Boyd leaned over so he was closer to Derek and said, very quietly, “Either he’s getting _smarter_ by the day, or you’re getting dumber.” 

Derek turned to glare at him, but Boyd just looked amused, shaking his head with a smile on his face when he turned to head out of the room, calling for the others to meet in the dining room. 

Shifting to level his glare at Stiles, he looked just as smug as ever, levering himself out of his chair and snapping his laptop shut with one hand. 

“Gotta say, it feels pretty good knowing I can outsmart someone who’s three _thousand_ years old.” 

“You’re not cute.” 

“Little cute,” Stiles argued, unplugging his laptop and picking it up, slapping at Derek’s arm on his way by. “Deny it all you want, I’m a _little_ cute.” 

Stiles was _very_ cute, but that didn’t mean Derek had to _fucking_ like it. 

**TBC...**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obligatory Copyright Shit:  
> \- Teen Wolf (c) Jeff Davis  
> \- The Old Guard (c) Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernández  
> \- Futurama (c) Matt Groening


	6. To Hurt Someone Who Cannot be Hurt

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional tags/warnings at the end of the chapter.

It didn’t take them very long to plan things out, because they’d already loaded up on gear and weapons, so it was just about choosing the locations and planning around security. Kira looked just as smug as Stiles did when Derek begrudgingly told them all about his plan to only provide them with two locations at a time, and that just annoyed him because it proved his whole damn family was out to get him. 

They decided to hit a few of the smaller research facilities first, and deal a bigger blow to a manufacturing hub later. They had to be careful and plan things properly to avoid Gerard finding out who, exactly, was destroying his property. 

That was why Kira said the first two they hit should be one of the biochemical warfare locations, and another legitimate research location. If they started with their own labs first, it would be like announcing themselves. By hitting two other targets first, Gerard would probably assume it was a competitor. 

Boyd worried about that causing increased security in the other places, but Stiles promised he’d be able to help on that front. Considering what Derek now knew about how he got his intel, it made sense he wasn’t concerned. Still, he wasn’t happy about it. 

They only planned for one and a half days before heading out. Boyd had bought an SUV, since the only two available cars barring Stiles’ Jeep were Derek’s Camaro—which seated two—and Erica’s Viper—which also seated two.

Besides, neither had the space for all their weapons, so the SUV was the better call. 

Stiles gave them detailed instructions on the two locations they would be hitting—one in Virginia and one in Utah—including a list of personnel, blueprints, research, security protocols and overall maintenance of the building. It was a lot more information than they usually got barring military jobs they took, so Derek actually felt pretty good about it. 

They loaded up late at night, wanting to head out in the dark, drive as far as they could during the day, and then sleep off and on until nightfall wherever they ended up deciding to go first. Derek kind of wanted to hit Utah first so there’d be more of a distance between their second hit and Beacon Hills, but they hadn’t firmly decided on that yet. 

Stiles watched them from the door while they threw two duffels into the back, Kira setting her sword, as well as Derek’s and Boyd’s on top before shutting the door and moving to climb into the back seat with Erica and Isaac. Boyd took his place in shotgun and Derek turned back to look at Stiles. 

He was standing on the porch with his hands in his pockets, watching them and looking uncertain. Derek didn’t know if he was worried about the plan as a whole, or if he thought they would choose not to come back. 

Sighing, Derek shut his door without getting in and moved back across the empty street. Stiles came down the porch steps so they could meet halfway up the driveway. 

“Having second thoughts?” Derek teased. 

“Just—be careful. I know you guys can’t die, but that doesn’t mean you don’t feel pain. I just don’t want anything to happen to you.” 

“We’ve done things like this for years, we’ll be fine,” Derek promised. 

Stiles just nodded, lips pressed together, but Derek could tell he was still worried. He supposed it was because, even if Stiles _knew_ they couldn’t die, a part of his brain was probably still thinking about them dying and somehow staying dead. 

Or just choosing not to come back to Beacon Hills, not even letting him know they were okay. 

In a way, selfish as it was, Derek was glad Stiles was smarter than him. That he hadn’t let him take all the information and run like he wanted to. Because it meant he still had more time with him, whether he liked it or not. 

“Um, you should—here.” Stiles reached into his pocket and pulled out his keys. Derek watched him take one off the ring before holding it out. “It’s the house key. You know, just in case. If I’m out or, I don’t know.” 

Derek stared down at the extended key for a long while before slowly reaching out to take it. Stiles let go immediately and Derek closed his hand around it, nodding in thanks. 

“Thank you.” 

“Yeah,” Stiles said. “It’s—you know, tons of people have a copy. Didn’t really think about it before, but I should’ve made some for you guys. Not that you leave the house much but, you know.” 

“Thank you,” he said again, automatically. “You have a spare?” 

“Hm? Oh yeah, no. I can grab dad’s and make a copy.” He waved one hand over his shoulder towards the house, then shoved it back into his pocket. “It’ll be fine.” 

“Okay.” Derek tightened his hand around the key, and looked up at Stiles. “We’ll see you in a week.” 

“Yup,” Stiles said. “See you in a week.” 

Derek nodded once, shifted awkwardly, and then turned around to head back for the car while getting the key onto the same key-ring as the Camaro’s as well as the SUV’s. They’d gotten two sets for the larger vehicle, so Derek had one and the other had gone to Boyd. 

He’d only just managed to get the key on it by the time he reached the car, opening the driver’s side door, climbing behind the wheel and slamming it shut. 

“You’re an idiot,” Kira informed him while he started it up.

He ignored her and pulled away from the curb, though he watched Stiles in the rearview mirror up until he couldn’t see him anymore. 

They ended up hitting the place in Utah first, which Derek was glad for. He liked having the degree of separation between Stiles’ house and their second job. Besides, it made sense, it was on the way, and considering it had less security than the second one—because the second was where they were doing illegal things, whereas the first was more reputable research—it was a good starting point for them. It helped them figure out what worked and what didn’t. 

It was actually kind of a relief that it ended up being as easy as it was. There had only been one scientist burning the midnight oil, and three security guards. There were other security measures, because of course there were, but they’d been easy to disable and the job itself hadn’t taken longer than two hours. 

_And_ no one had died. Not on their side, or the other side. Derek had been really glad, because even though he’d killed many people in his life, he wasn’t a killer by nature. He did what he had to do, and war was ugly and vicious. Sure, he would admit to killing bad people when given the opportunity, he didn’t lose any sleep over it, but like Stiles had said: this was a job. These people, especially the ones in the regular facilities, were just doing their jobs. It wasn’t right to punish them for something they didn’t even know was happening. 

Gerard’s own personal war against the immortal five. 

After they were done in Utah, they headed out to Virginia immediately. It was a long roadtrip, and they wanted to get there, get it done, and go home. The plan was to lay low for about a week after completing the job before moving to the next. While Boyd was concerned about hitting places too slowly and allowing Gerard more time to fortify his defenses, Kira argued that hitting them all too _quickly_ risked him knowing it was them and choosing just _one_ place to secure to an unprecedented degree and then wait for them to hit it. 

The longer they dragged this out, the more likely he’d think it was a competitor. That was the hope, anyway. Derek was going to keep hoping Gerard was a fucking idiot. 

The job in Virginia went a little less smoothly than the one in Utah, but only because Isaac had accidentally tripped an alarm that they _knew_ about. Kira had been pissed, but she tended to be cranky most of the time so Derek didn’t really worry about it. They still managed to get the job done with no casualties and no witnesses, so that was the important thing. And the one in Virginia had been faster in a way because they hadn’t stopped to download any of the research. 

The Utah facility was doing the legitimate research, the Virginia one was doing biochemical warfare. That place they just blew up and watched burn. 

Derek was actually pretty pleased with the timing of it all, because he’d estimated a week from beginning to end, California to Virginia and back. He was almost right on the money, because by the time they parked the SUV outside the Stilinski house, it was quarter to one in the morning on April ninth, exactly one week and a few hours after their original departure.

He didn’t miss the way everyone relaxed at the sight of it. It wasn’t even the place, and he knew it. Sure, the house was nice, and it was homey and comfortable, but they’d all kind of gotten used to having Stiles around. It had been weird the past week without him, and he knew they were all eager to get back inside. 

He’d likely be sleeping at this hour, but that was okay. He’d know they were back, he’d either hear them getting ready for bed or he’d notice the changes around the house when he got up in the morning. 

Climbing out, they tried to shut their doors quietly, not wanting to draw too much attention to themselves. They didn’t take any of their stuff out of the back, though Kira grabbed their swords, tossing Derek his. He caught it in one hand and slung the strap over his shoulder while they moved up to the front door. 

Derek ascended first, keys in hand, and he couldn’t help feeling a little strange when he held it between his fingers. 

He hadn’t had a home, not a _real_ one, in a really long time. It felt nice being able to flip to the housekey and push it into the lock. Opening the door to the familiarity of the entrance and the cluttered mess by the hall table, and the smell of life. 

All the places they went to always smelled of stale air and dust when they walked in, but the Stilinski household wasn’t like that at all. It reminded them that people lived here, that _they_ kind of lived here. There was someone waiting for them when they came home, and it was a really nice feeling. 

When Isaac locked the door behind himself, being the last one in, they all dispersed to get ready for bed. Kira headed upstairs right away, Isaac debating before following. Erica went towards the living room with some files and the external hard drives of research so she could drop them off with the rest of their stuff in the dining room. 

Derek decided he should probably grab a bite before heading to bed, since he hadn’t eaten much during the drive back. Boyd was either of the same mind or wanted a drink because he followed after Derek while he moved to the kitchen. He flipped on the light, starting for the fridge, and paused. 

There was a rather pathetic-looking cake on the kitchen table that looked to have had either two small pieces or one big piece cut out of it. Frowning, Derek forewent the fridge and moved over to it, feeling Boyd following behind him. He grabbed the edge of the plate, turning it slightly. It had been cut a bit unevenly, but he could clearly see the header. 

‘Happy Birthday St es,’ with the two middle letters cut out. 

Derek’s heart hit his feet. Had it been Stiles’ birthday? _When_? 

They’d never—actually spoken about Stiles’ birthday. He always knew how old Stiles would _be_ in any given year, because he knew he was born in 1999, but they’d never discussed his actual _date_ of birth. 

“It was his birthday?” Boyd asked.

And Derek hated when he had to respond with, “I don’t know.” 

Stiles had spent his birthday alone. He’d grown up alone, and even now, even with people in his life, even with Derek _there_ , he’d _still_ been alone on his birthday. 

Fuck, he didn’t even know if that truly _was_ two small pieces. It honestly could’ve been just the one big piece. Maybe Stiles had just made himself a cake, eaten a slice, wished himself a happy birthday, and gone up to bed. 

Had he even gone to see his dad today? Surely he must have. And what about Parrish? And the other people at the station he always talked about? And Melissa? What about his friends, had they called? Had anyone even _remembered_? 

“What are you doing?” 

Derek turned, and saw Erica pause in the doorway when she caught sight of what he and Boyd were staring at. Her face did something weird, and when she moved forward, it was kind of stilted. She stopped beside Boyd to stare down at the cake. 

“He didn’t say anything,” she said quietly. “Why didn’t—he should have said something.” 

“It’s Stiles,” Boyd insisted gruffly. “He’d rather we focus on us than on his birthday.” 

“When was it?”

Derek _hated_ that she looked at him for an answer, because he again had to say, “I don’t know.” 

It didn’t take long for Kira and Isaac to find them, probably wondering what they were doing and why they hadn’t come up yet. Isaac looked devastated. Kira’s expression didn’t change but Derek could tell that she was sad. 

Like Boyd, she knew Stiles hadn’t said anything because to him, his birthday was of little importance. It was nothing compared to what they were trying to do, keep themselves safe, live their lives in peace. 

It didn’t make it any better though. 

When they all heard a creak from upstairs, they turned towards the kitchen door. Before long, a door opened, like Stiles was heading for the bathroom. There was a moment of silence, like he’d already noticed a change, and then footsteps padded down the stairs. 

He came down the corridor while they were all crowded around the cake in the kitchen, rubbing sleep from his eyes and squinting at the brightness of the kitchen lights. His hair was mussed and matted down on one side, he had sleep lines along the left side of his face, his shirt was all twisted up and wrinkled and his pyjama bottoms looked like they were new and too long for him. 

He paused when he fully entered the kitchen, still squinting slightly due to sleep and the bright lights. It was like he was trying to figure out if he was actually seeing them or not. 

“You’re back,” he said, voice thick with sleep. “When did you get in?” 

“Is it your birthday?” Isaac asked instead of answering his question. 

“What?” Stiles asked, sounding confused. Then he seemed to notice what they were crowding around and he shifted his weight uncomfortably. “Oh, uh... yeah. I mean, it was.” He waved one hand absently. “Yesterday. April eighth.” 

One hour. One _fucking_ hour. 

If Derek had driven faster, if they hadn’t stopped at that gas station for coffee, if they’d chosen a different drive-thru for breakfast... 

They could’ve made it. It would’ve been the end of the day, it wouldn’t have fixed that Stiles had been alone for his birthday, but they would have at least been _there_. Just right at the end. Right before it went from being his birthday to _not_ being his birthday. 

“Happy birthday!” Derek knew Erica was trying to fix it. She was trying to make them all feel better. It was why she threw her arms up in excitement, then jumped at Stiles to crush him in a hug, kissing his cheek and leaving behind a smear of lipstick. 

Stiles snorted at her reaction, thanking her, but when she pulled away, Isaac moved in to hug him just as tightly. And just to be a shit, he kissed him too, on the opposite cheek from Erica and very loudly. Stiles actually laughed at that and shoved him slightly. 

The biggest surprise to Derek was when Kira moved in next. She wasn’t a particularly touchy-feely person, so having her shift forward to hug Stiles a little less enthusiastically than the other two was kind of a shock to him. But she wished him a quiet happy birthday, apologized that they’d missed it, and moved back. 

Derek felt like his family was trying to betray him somehow, because even though Boyd didn’t fully hug Stiles like the other three, he still moved forward to pull him into a short one-armed hug, thumping his back once and smiling at him. 

They all turned to look expectantly at Derek, who was gripping the back of the closest chair so tightly with one hand that he was actually hurting himself. Stiles didn’t look like he expected anything, and Derek hated that. He tried to get his feet to move, he tried to unclench his hand, he _tried_ to at least just—grab his shoulder, slap his arm, just _anything_.

Instead he just stood there, across the table from him, and said, “Happy birthday Stiles.” 

“Thanks.” He gave Derek a somewhat tight smile, but his ‘thanks’ was genuine. 

_“Idiot,”_ Kira insisted in Japanese. 

Stiles pointed at her while still staring at Derek. “I know what that means. I watch anime.” 

“Sorry we missed it,” Boyd said honestly, probably so that things wouldn’t dissolve into more awkwardness. “I’d ask why you didn’t say anything, but I feel like I know the answer.” 

Stiles just shrugged easily. “You guys had more important things to worry about, it’s fine. It’s just a birthday, it’s not like it’s a big deal or anything. You guys have had like, hundreds of them.” 

Boyd winced at that, and Stiles frowned before Kira explained. “We haven’t—really celebrated in a long time. You kind of stop keeping track after a while.” 

“Right,” Stiles said, nodding slowly. “I guess that makes sense.” 

Before things could dissolve _again_ into awkwardness, Erica clapped her hands together once, loudly, and grinned. “We should do something. We _will_ do something. Tomorrow. Or, you know, later today. After we sleep.” She motioned the time on the stove. “But when we all wake up, we’ll do something fun. Celebrate.” 

“It’s fine,” Stiles insisted. “Really, you don’t have to—”

“Stiles,” Derek cut in, and he shut his mouth immediately, glancing over at Derek. “We’re doing something tomorrow.” 

It looked like he wanted to argue some more, but he just stared at Derek for a few seconds before conceding defeat and nodding once. Derek nodded back and Erica grinned almost dangerously. 

“All right! Bed time!” she said loudly. “The sooner we sleep, the sooner we wake up and celebrate. Good night birthday boy!” She threw her arms around his neck and gave him another kiss, smearing _more_ lipstick on his cheek. 

“Night,” he said with a half-laugh while she and Boyd left the kitchen. Isaac was quick to follow and Kira gave Derek a look before disappearing after him. 

Derek wished Stiles had been the first to turn and leave, but he should’ve known better.

They stood in a semi-uncomfortable silence for a while before Derek finally asked, “Did you make this yourself?” 

“No, Melissa did.” Stiles crossed his arms over his chest, looking like he was trying to silently defend himself, and shrugged. “It’s not great, she kind of sucks at baking. It’s the thought that counts though, so I eat it every year. Well, except the last two, since I was away at school.” 

“Did you—was she the uh...” Derek motioned the missing piece awkwardly. 

“Yeah, she stayed long enough to have a slice with me before going to work.” 

Derek hated that. Melissa had made him a cake and stayed for a slice, but she hadn’t stayed long. How much time did Stiles actually spend with people on his birthday? How much time had he spent _alone_? 

“What did you do?” 

Stiles shrugged again, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, then back again. “Went down to the station for a bit after I got up. The guys bought some cupcakes, but they’re cops so, you know. Can’t exactly just hang out with them all day. Parrish took me to lunch though, so that was cool. Saw dad for a bit, but he had a bunch of tests scheduled for today and a physical therapy session so it wasn’t a long visit. Then just came home and made some spaghetti for dinner, watched some TV, spoke to a few people. Melissa came by with the cake and then I just kind of... caught up on some social media stuff before heading to bed.” 

Derek hated it. Stiles sounded like he was fine, and he’d seen a few people that day, which was good, but he couldn’t stop thinking about how Stiles must’ve felt. 

If his dad hadn’t been shot, he would’ve been at school right now. With his friends. He’d have gone out, had a good time, probably gone to a bar or something since he’d just turned twenty-one. He’d have gotten calls from his friends and family, and had _fun_.

Instead, he was here. Alone in his house. His father was in the hospital, all his friends were scattered around the country—maybe the world—and all he’d had was some cops give him a few minutes of their time, one person take him out to lunch, a short visit with his dad, and a badly made cake. 

Derek hated it. He _hated_ it. 

“Don’t look so upset,” Stiles insisted, rolling his eyes. “It’s not like it was any worse than any of my other birthdays growing up.” 

“You had friends here back then,” Derek argued. 

Stiles shrugged. “Not always. Sometimes dad would try and get the day off so Scott and Jackson would steer clear. He almost always got called in though and usually they had other plans so I just didn’t mention that I was by myself and spent the day playing video games.” 

“That’s not making me feel any better,” Derek said dryly. 

“Seriously, it’s _fine_ ,” Stiles insisted. “It’s just a birthday.” 

_Yeah, but it’s **yours** ,_ Derek wanted to say. But he didn’t. He just stared at Stiles for a few more seconds, then checked the time on the stove. “It’s late. We should sleep.” 

“Yeah.” Stiles groaned and rubbed his face with both hands. “I’m going to have to remind Erica I am _not_ immortal and whatever she’s planning for tomorrow will probably have to get toned down to mortal levels.” 

Derek laughed, because Stiles wasn’t wrong. He watched him drag his hands down his face before clearing his throat. 

“Well, glad you made it home safe. I’ll see you in the morning.” 

“Good night Stiles.” 

He turned and raised one hand in parting while heading down the corridor. Derek waited until he heard him use the bathroom—clearly the original reason he’d gotten up—and then go back to bed. 

He looked down at the cake, thinking maybe he could make one tomorrow morning too. He didn’t know how Stiles would feel about that though, because Melissa’s cake was made with love. Not that Derek’s wouldn’t be, but well... He’d think on it. He had time before the morning. 

Heading upstairs and getting himself organized for bed, he shut the guest room door quietly behind him once he was ready, Isaac already passed out on the air mattress and Kira only opening one eye briefly to check that it was Derek before closing it again, clearly on the verge of falling asleep. 

Lying down on the bed beside her, he stared up at the ceiling for a while, turning everything over in his head. He wished he’d hugged Stiles. He wished he’d at least shown him some form of affection. He was the one Stiles had told about the physical comfort, and yet Derek was the only one who hadn’t given him any. He wished he was a time traveller as well as immortal so he could go back and change things sometimes. 

It felt like he was lying in bed for hours, staring up at the ceiling, regretting so many of his decisions since arriving in Beacon Hills. So many things he’d said and done—or not done—with Stiles. 

The longer he lay there, the more he felt like he needed to use the bathroom. He knew he didn’t, but it was just that really annoying feeling where the more he thought about it, the more he felt like he needed it until he gave up with an annoyed exhale. 

Climbing silently out of bed, he moved into the corridor and headed for the bathroom. As predicted, he didn’t actually need to use it, but he did his business anyway and washed his hands. He wandered downstairs to check the time, and then debated organizing their files and paperwork before deciding he didn’t want to stay awake that long. 

They had plans with Stiles in the morning, and the stove already proclaimed it was half-past three, so he needed to get at least a _bit_ of sleep. 

Heading back upstairs, he started past Stiles’ room before he paused. A part of him wondered if he was still awake, typing away at his computer, doing more research for them. He wouldn’t put it past him, honestly. Stiles was just like that. Ridiculously smart and frustratingly selfless. 

He hesitated for only a moment before turning the knob and easing open the door. The room was a bit brighter than the corridor, courtesy of the television on the dresser that was turned on with the volume low. 

Stiles was definitely sleeping though, Derek could see him lying on his side in bed, soft, almost adorable snores escaping him. He moved further into the room, eyes shifting to the television to see what was playing. It looked like some kind of infomercial, so Derek figured Stiles only had it on for the light and not because he was actually watching it.

Unless he was in dire need of a two-in-one chopper/peeler set for carrots. 

Moving over to the bed, Derek looked down at Stiles and felt his chest clench again at the sight of him. 

He was sleeping on his side, as Derek noticed from the door, but he hadn’t been able to see from there that Stiles was hugging a pillow against his chest. It made him think of how comfortable Stiles had been when Jackson had slid into bed behind him, and how much he craved physical affection and so rarely got it. 

Despite knowing better, Derek sat on the edge of the bed by Stiles’ hip, staring down at him for a moment before reaching out, hesitating for half a second, and burying his hand in Stiles’ hair. He continued to snore softly, like he didn’t even notice the touch, and Derek allowed his fingers to slide through the strands a few times. 

Stiles had soft hair. It was surprising to him, considering how much product he always put in it, but he supposed when it washed out it somehow protected his hair from damage or something. He didn’t really know how hair products worked, since he didn’t use any himself. 

Still, his hair was really soft, and Derek kind of wanted to just bury his face in it. He didn’t, but it was a near thing. 

“Happy birthday,” he said softly, still running his fingers through his hair. And before he could talk himself out of it, he bent down and pressed his lips against Stiles’ temple, closing his eyes and taking a second to pretend this could actually work between them. That he could actually have this. But he only allowed himself the one second, pulling back and sitting up again. He stared down at Stiles for a moment longer, fingers still sliding easily through the strands. 

It took some time to convince himself to go back to bed but eventually he found the strength to pull his hand away and stand, exiting the room and shutting the door soundlessly behind him. 

He went back to bed, and pretended it had never happened. 

Because it would hurt more to remember that it did. 

* * *

“So what’s your favourite thing about being immortal?” 

Derek blinked once while the question processed in his mind before looking up at Stiles, who was looking around the room at them expectantly. 

“What?” he asked, honestly unsure he’d heard him right. 

They were taking a break from their review of one of the research facilities they were going to be hitting because apparently there was a new security measure that was giving Stiles trouble. He’d been cranky and snappy all day yesterday to the point where Kira had legitimately been tempted to shoot him before remembering he wasn’t Isaac and thus wouldn’t come back. 

She’d staved off the urge to murder Stiles by shooting Isaac instead. It had helped, but only just, because Stiles was _still_ cranky and the unexpected and unwarranted death had Isaac grumpy for a majority of the day. 

Derek had called a moratorium on the research that morning so that everyone could calm down, get some perspective, relax a little bit. They deserved some time off anyway, they’d been doing good work. 

It was already mid-May and they’d taken out twelve research facilities and one of the larger manufacturing hubs. Stiles had started cramming all the legitimate research they collected into the safe in the basement, but had mentioned he was starting to run out of room. It wasn’t a very big safe, and there was a lot of stuff. 

Derek wasn’t worried though, most of the places left seemed to be about them, biochemical warfare, or ways common medicine could make people sick to force them to buy _more_ medicine.

Because Gerard Argent wasn’t enough of an asshole already, he just had to prove he was _more_ of an asshole with each new thing they found out about him. 

Besides, it wasn’t like they were in any hurry. Stiles had been keeping an eye on communication within SilverCorp and the rest of them watched the news and read articles online. So far, Gerard Argent seemed to be of the opinion it was a competitor or rights activists sabotaging his labs, so the longer they could keep this up, the better for them. As soon as Gerard found out _who_ , exactly, was sabotaging his sites, things were going to get trickier. 

So for today, Derek was fine letting everyone take a break, giving Stiles time to let his mind reset and look at the problem from a different angle. He knew he’d figure it out, he always did. He was smart, _too_ smart. He’d figure it out. 

“What’s your favourite thing about being immortal?” Stiles asked again, spooning some yogurt into his mouth. They were planning on ordering from the barbecue place in town for dinner, so Stiles was determined to keep his stomach as empty as possible to overeat and fill up on cornbread—apparently, he had a thing for cornbread—but he’d been getting hungry off and on the past few hours so he kept snacking on small things. His current snack was yogurt, but it was a bit less of a snack when he ate three in a row. 

“You know, something you like,” Stiles elaborated when no one said anything. Derek assumed the others were busy enjoying the movie on the screen, but it became clear they just didn’t know how to answer. “There’s an upside, right? There has to be. I mean, apart from the whole not dying thing.” He waved one hand, like that wasn’t really an _upside_ , even though it would be for most mortal people. “If you had to choose something good about being immortal, what would it be?” He looked at them all in turn while spooning more yogurt into his mouth. 

Everyone was silent, the television’s music beginning to get louder as an action sequence started. 

Kira was the first one to offer an answer, shrugging easily while saying, “I can shoot Isaac in the head when he pisses me off.” 

“Haha,” Isaac said sarcastically, throwing a pillow at her. Kira just caught it with one hand and threw it back at him twice as hard, hitting him in the face. He scowled at her in annoyance. 

“Stiles said something _good_ ,” Erica argued, curled up against Boyd on the couch and giving Kira a pointed look. “Isaac comes _back_ , it’s hardly _good_.” 

Boyd started laughing at that and even Kira let out a small, startled one. Derek smiled and shook his head while Isaac threw the pillow at Erica. Boyd caught it before it hit her, because there would be _hell_ to pay if her make-up got ruined. 

“I hate all of you,” Isaac informed them heatedly. “I’m gonna feed you all rat poison one day.” 

“Your cooking’s not _that_ bad,” Erica offered with a sickeningly sweet smile and Isaac looked like he was trying to find another pillow to throw her way but came up empty-handed. 

“I like seeing how things change,” Boyd offered, turning to Stiles and actually _answering_ his question. “I know that as time passes, we expect more change. A lot of it doesn’t,” he said quietly, and he looked down at Erica while saying this, one hand rubbing up and down her arm lightly, “but some things do.” 

Derek averted his gaze at that, because he knew what Boyd wasn’t actually saying. Even in these times, people still looked at Boyd and Erica with distaste, like it was offensive to see a biracial couple. It pissed Derek off, because that shouldn’t _matter_ , it was nobody’s business. But people always made it their business. 

He was hoping that in another few hundred years people would calm the fuck down and stop being so damn racist. Things were never this bad back in his time, but things always changed. Some good, some bad. 

“I like being witness to that,” Boyd continued, turning back to Stiles. Derek focussed on him too, finding any excuse to have more time looking at him. “To see how the world changes around us.” 

“That’s actually really cool,” Stiles said with a smile. “You must have seen a lot of really interesting things.” 

“Some,” Boyd agreed. “Others—not so much.” 

Before Stiles could ask for Boyd to elaborate on anything specific, Isaac jumped in with, “Weaponry is kind of cool.” 

“Yeah?” Stiles asked. 

“Yeah, the changes they’ve made are pretty interesting. Not to say the atomic bomb and all that shit is great, but when you consider how things used to be, I kind of like that I can shoot off sixty rounds rapid-fire. Unlike those weirdos, who have an obsession with swords.” He motioned Boyd, Kira and Derek. 

“It’s not weird for us to have an obsession with weapons that were literally the height of combat in our times,” Boyd argued. 

Isaac waved his words away as unimportant, though he didn’t say anything further. He at least acknowledged that it was how things used to be before firearms, even if he often pretended to forget that life had existed long before he did. 

Stiles waited a few seconds to see if anyone else had anything forthcoming, then shifted his gaze to look at him. “Derek?” 

Honestly, he didn’t really know. He liked seeing the change around him, same as Boyd, but aside from that, he still wished more often than not that he wasn’t stuck in this eternal loop. Especially now, when he had a reason to want to be able to grow old, spend the rest of his life beside someone.

But he couldn’t say that, so he just thought about everything else he’d been through and decided on something he didn’t necessarily _love_ , but that he found some comfort in. 

“I like being someone else,” he admitted. “Changing who I am every now and then is kind of... liberating. Like wiping the slate clean.” 

Kira hummed from her spot in the armchair beside him, like she agreed with him. At least to a degree. It was kind of nice being able to be someone different every now and again. He didn’t like _why_ they had to change their names, but he would admit to finding some comfort in being able to leave certain pieces of himself behind every time he changed who he was. 

“Do you have a new name picked out?” Stiles asked curiously. 

Derek nodded once. “I do.” 

When he didn’t elaborate, Stiles raised his eyebrows. “And?” 

“I thought I’d go with Eric Haki,” he offered, leaning back more comfortably on the couch, shrugging his shoulders. “Eric is close to Derek, and I still want to keep Halki in there somehow. Eric Haki seems like a decent name.” 

Stiles squinted slightly while staring at him, like he was turning the name over in his mind. Eventually, he shook his head and said, “I can’t see it. You as an Eric. You’re always gonna be Derek to me.” 

_You’ll be dead before my name changes so you’ll never have to know me as anything else,_ Derek thought, but had enough tact not to say it. Boyd could read it on his face though and he shifted his gaze away, hand still rubbing up and down Erica’s arm. 

Derek didn’t want to leave the conversation hanging like this, so he turned back to Stiles. “What about you?” 

He cocked an eyebrow while looking into his yogurt container, using his spoon to scrape at the sides, like he was trying to get every last drop of it. “Me what?” 

“What name would you pick if you could?” 

Stiles snorted at that, shoving the spoon into his mouth before dumping it back into the yogurt cup and setting them down on the table. The empty container fell over from the weight of the spoon, but Stiles ignored it. “Something pronounceable, that’s for sure.” 

Derek couldn’t help the laugh that escaped him. He could still picture little four year old Stiles trying to say Mieczyslaw and only coming out with Mischief. 

He was silent for a few seconds while he thought, bobbing his head from side to side before saying, “You guys tend to stick close to home, right? So I guess if I followed that logic, I’d be something like... I don’t know. Michael?” 

“Michael?” Erica asked with a laugh. 

“What’s wrong with Michael?” Stiles demanded, sounding offended. “Mieczyslaw. Michael. Close enough.” He straightened in his seat and brought both hands up, like he was picturing some kind of banner. “Michael Silkinski! It’s got a good feel to it, nice ring to it, no?” 

“Could always go a bit meta,” Isaac offered. “You used to go by Mischief. Could be Loki or something.” 

“Oh, I like that,” Stiles admitted with a grin. “Too obvious, though. If you’re immortal, you gotta go with the generic names. Like Michael. Or Derek.” 

“Thanks,” Derek said dryly, though Stiles wasn’t wrong. 

“I was thinking of switching back to something a bit closer to my original name for our next round,” Erica admitted, shifting against Boyd and looking like she was enjoying this conversation more than the movie. They basically lived in an action movie, so Derek could understand why his family found more enjoyment out of the conversation versus the explosions on the screen. “I already went by America once, since it was closer and a more anglicized version of my name Ayméric, but I think I want to go back into the ‘am’ realm. I was thinking something like Amelia.” 

“You’d make a great Amelia,” Boyd said, kissing her head. She beamed up at him, tilting her face up to kiss him properly. Isaac made a sound of disgust, but Boyd just threw the pillow back at him without pulling away from Erica. 

“Gross,” Isaac muttered. 

“You’re just jealous you don’t have someone willing to kiss you,” Erica teased when they broke apart, resting her cheek on Boyd’s shoulder. 

“Stiles is willing to kiss me,” Isaac insisted. 

“Stiles is not willing to kiss you,” Stiles corrected immediately. 

“I’m surrounded by assholes.” 

“You attract what you are,” Kira offered with a vicious grin. 

“At least you admit you’re an asshole,” Isaac said triumphantly. Kira didn’t look like she was worried about that. 

“What about you Boyd?” Stiles asked. “You got any ideas?” 

“I don’t know,” he admitted, tilting his head slightly. “Haven’t really thought about it much. It’s not pressing right now, we still have time before we change our names.” 

“Yeah, I guess when you’re not at a loss for time, you can think on it as long as you want.” Stiles smiled at them. 

He didn’t look sad, or resentful, or jealous. He looked the same way he always did. But Derek still hated the knowledge that by the time he was Eric Haki, and Erica was Amelia, and Kira, Boyd and Isaac chose new names to go by, Stiles Stilinski was going to be an old man, or he wasn’t going to be around anymore at all. 

Before Derek could get _too_ depressed about it, Stiles did a full body jerk in his chair, his eyes widened and his mouth fell open. “I figured it out! I figured it _out_!” He scrambled out of his seat, tripping over the edge of the coffee table and cursing while struggling back to his feet from all fours, racing across the living room and towards the stairs. 

“Figured what out?” Erica demanded after him, confused. 

“I think he just got an epiphany on the problem with the new security measures,” Derek said with a sigh. 

Looked like their quiet day of relaxation was over. 

Time to go back to work. 

* * *

Derek knew it was only a matter of time before Gerard Argent put the pieces together. 

Much as he wanted to pretend the man was an idiot, he was CEO of a huge pharmaceutical company and was the second person to ever have figured out that immortal beings existed in the world, Harrison Stilinski being the first. 

So of course, Derek knew one day that Gerard was going to look at all the hits on his facilities, and realize it wasn’t a competitor or some kind of activists. 

It was the five people he’d spent the past twenty years chasing. 

Stiles had caught the first email from Gerard to his daughter Kate after they’d finished burning down the nineteenth facility. 

It only had two words: “It’s them.” 

For obvious reasons, Stiles wanted to stop, take a break, regroup and postpone any further attacks. They disagreed, and while he had all the information, when all five of them insisted that it wasn’t his decision and they could honestly do this with or without his help, he’d found himself backed into a corner and had begrudgingly continued to give them details. 

They were more than halfway through the labs anyway, and while they’d only managed to destroy one of the manufacturing buildings so far, their main concern for the moment was the research. 

Stiles said there were still four left that had records of holding at least one sample of the drug that used blood from The Five in it, so those were the ones of most importance right now. Not to say they were going to stop attacking the biochemical warfare locations, but now that they didn’t need to hide what they were _really_ doing, it meant they could go after the facilities that mattered the most. 

Derek knew something would go wrong eventually. If Gerard knew it was them, it meant he’d change up how he did things. Security measures were switched up and increased around the four facilities of importance, not to mention how much of it there was around the headquarters in Massachusetts. 

At first Derek assumed it was a blatant show of favouritism towards his daughter, but Stiles found out that Chris Argent had been called back home, as if Gerard wanted to keep his children close. Whether it was to keep them safe, or to ensure neither of them double-crossed him, Derek didn’t know, but either way, Chris and Kate Argent were in Massachusetts with their father. 

Their twentieth hit was troublesome. They managed to destroy the place, but it wasn’t without casualties. Derek hated that, but if someone was shooting to kill, he was going to return the favour, even if he would walk out at the end of the day. 

Their twenty-fist hit was bad. They didn’t destroy the place, but they at least managed to get rid of the samples, which was the most important thing. A few more casualties there, but Derek was starting to feel less gracious towards people aiming to kill, especially if they _didn’t_ know they were immortal. 

It was on the next hit, their twenty-second one, in Arizona around three in the morning that shit _really_ hit the fan. 

This was the third of four facilities with samples of their blood and other DNA that they had left. It had been surprisingly easy to infiltrate considering what had happened in the previous two, but maybe that should have been the indicator that something was wrong. 

They’d split up, like they always did. They all had their strengths and weaknesses, and Derek was good at having everyone go where they needed to be. Security was laughable, almost like there was nothing to find in the place, but he knew there was because when he got to where everything was being stored, he found what he was looking for before smashing the glass tubes under his boot and beginning to soak the room in gasoline. 

Kira joined him while he was still emptying out the first canister, looking around uncomfortably with her sword gripped tightly in both hands. 

“Something feels wrong,” she said quietly. “It’s too easy.” 

“We can’t just be lucky?” he asked, though he wasn’t disagreeing with her. Because it _was_ too easy. And that made him nervous. 

“We’re never lucky,” Kira argued. “We’re either right, or dead.” 

He finished up with the canister before setting it down, turning to her. She didn’t often look unsure, or worried. Not on a job. But something wasn’t sitting well with her, and if there was one thing Derek trusted, it was Kira’s gut. 

“You okay to finish up here?” he asked. “I’ll check on the others.” 

She nodded once, curtly, and sheathed her sword, grabbing at another container of gasoline and beginning to lead a trail of it out of the room. 

Derek moved quickly towards the security room, having already cleared it and knocked the guard out. He was tied up outside a decent way from the building so he wasn’t caught in the fire they were going to light. He felt bad for how many firemen’s evenings they kept ruining with their activities, but it was kind of for the greater good. 

They didn’t know what their blood would do to people, and Derek didn’t want a money hungry asshole who let his own granddaughter die be the first one to figure that out. It could cause irreparable damage, it could turn more people into them, it could— _maybe_ cure some diseases, but they didn’t know that, and while Derek would like to test it one day, he certainly wouldn’t test it with Gerard Argent. 

Reaching the security room, he checked all the cameras quickly, cycling through them and finding everyone inside where he expected them to be. Boyd was finishing up in his area, and Isaac looked like he was heading out to meet Kira. Well, it should’ve been Derek since that was where he’d just been, but that didn’t matter. 

The only person not on the cameras was Erica, but that wasn’t unusual. She was taking point outside with her AT sniper rifle, watching their backs like she always did. Derek didn’t want to leave the other three, but he didn’t see anything concerning on the screen, and without a way to contact Erica, he wanted to be _sure_ he had nothing to worry about. 

Turning out of the room, he pulled the strap of his gun across his chest and held it tightly in both hands while walking towards the exit. It took some time to get there, since he’d been closer to the middle of the facility, but he eventually made it outside and onto the road. 

This particular building was kind of in a remote location when compared to a lot of the other ones they’d hit. There was a lot of open space between buildings, with more desert than Derek would’ve liked. Arizona was extremely dry, it made his skin itch. 

Keeping a tight grip on his weapon, he jogged towards the rise on the back end of the compound, Erica having taken up residence there for a better vantage point, and their SUV parked about a mile west so it wasn’t spotted so close to a SilverCorp building. 

Digging his boots into the dirt to move faster up the incline, when Derek reached the top, he froze. 

There was an armoured truck a few feet away from him, men in tactical gear aiming weapons at a figure strapped down to a gurney and convulsing. Derek could see electrical wires attached to it, the padding missing so that the body on it was touching the metal frame. 

On top of that, it looked like every time Erica tried to fight back or sit up or do anything, one of the men around her would fire his weapon and she’d slump back down for a few seconds, body still twitching before coming back and starting the cycle again. 

Derek heard the shot before he felt it, having been so focussed on the sight in front of him that he’d missed when someone noticed he was there. The bullet hit him right in the chest and he flew backwards over the edge of the incline. 

He inhaled sharply when he came back, pain exploding throughout his entire body before disappearing in a second like it always did. He could hear shouting and doors slamming above him, shifting on his back so he could roll over and stumble to his feet. 

“Your father would want—”

“I _know_ what my father would want!” a woman’s voice shouted. “But we have to learn from our mistakes! The last time we had them, it took only _one_ of them to get free and ruin everything! We have her, we’re going. _Now_!” 

No. _No_! They fucking had Erica! Derek couldn’t let them go, he could _not_ lose her! 

Scrambling back up the incline, foot slipping on some loose earth, Derek raced back over the top with his gun raised and began shooting at the truck. 

Everyone was already inside by then with the back doors shut, and he only managed to catch one guy who hadn’t quite made it into the passenger seat yet. His body convulsed as bullets tore through it, but the driver seemed to recognize a lost cause when he saw one and hit the gas, the passenger-side door slamming as it peeled away, kicking up dirt. 

Derek ran after it, still firing at it almost desperately. He went for the wheels, the side mirrors, the handles on the back doors, just _anything_. But this gun wasn’t designed for an armoured vehicle. It was designed to shoot people. 

When he ran out of bullets, he cursed and let the gun go, continuing to race after the truck as if he honestly thought he could catch up to it. He knew he couldn’t, even now, the distance was growing. Fuck. _Fuck_! He couldn’t lose Erica! He couldn’t lose any of his family, not to these people! 

They seemed to have clued in that he was out of bullets, and that he was still chasing them, because one of the back doors opened and a man crouched at the entrance with a weapon, aiming at him. 

He ducked his head when a shot was fired, continuing to run after the truck. Another shot hit him in the shoulder and he cried out but ignored it, the pain gone quickly as the bullet was forced out of his body and the wound healed. He stumbled when they caught him in the knee, but he kept running, watching the distance grow. 

Kate Argent was standing behind the man shooting at him, a vicious, _triumphant_ smile on her face while she waved mockingly. She knew she’d won. She knew that, by making the call _not_ to try and get Derek as well, they were going to get away with Erica. 

Fuck, no! _No_! He couldn’t let this happen! 

All Derek had on him was a handgun, his sword and two grenades. He didn’t want to use a grenade, because while movies exaggerated and the truck wasn’t going to explode in a plume of fire and disintegrate into a million pieces, it was still going to kill everyone inside with the shrapnel. 

But then again... these people weren’t innocent. They weren’t like the lab technicians who were looking for the cure to diseases. They weren’t like the security guards patrolling the hallways to keep the place safe from vandalism and thieves. 

These people _knew_ what they were doing. They were keeping Erica incapacitated, they were shooting her _in the head_ so she couldn’t fight back. They were well aware of the fact that she was immortal, so they knew taking her back to their boss meant an eternity of being a lab rat. 

Derek pulled the pin, counted to three, and threw the grenade. It sailed right over Kate’s smug face through the open door, and she barely had time for the look to fall off before the grenade exploded. 

Kate and the other man at the door flew out of the truck from the impact of the shrapnel, and the vehicle jerked to the side dangerously before going over the ridge running alongside the road they were on. 

Derek didn’t stop running, he just jumped over Kate’s lifeless body and the soldier’s and chased after the truck as one wheel went over the side. It tipped a moment later and then rolled as it slid down the incline, tumbling over itself once before the weight of the back end made it stay stuck on its side and it just slid along the dirt. 

“Erica!” Derek shouted, jumping over the side and stumbling down the incline. “Erica! Ayméric!” 

Both back doors were open now, one bent out of shape and the other open and flat on the ground. Derek clambered into the back, the place a mess, and found the gurney face down with Erica still strapped to it. She was convulsing, and the sight of that was the only thing that stopped Derek from grabbing at the metal frame. He would’ve been no better if he had. 

Looking around urgently, one of the men in the back—who looked like the fall had broken his neck—was wearing a pair of rubber gloves. Derek wrenched them off him quickly, struggling to pull them on.

“I’m right here, I’ve got you,” Derek insisted. “I’m right here, just hang on.” 

He couldn’t get the second one on fast enough so he gave up. He was wearing boots with rubber soles so he used the one gloved hand to grab at the corner and yanked the gurney back over so Erica was facing up again. He’d have turned off the electrical current, but he couldn’t see where it was coming from and didn’t want to waste time looking for it. 

Reaching out with one hand, he quickly undid the straps holding Erica down, and then grabbed the front of her jacket when she was free, yanking her up and off. 

She stumbled into him, Derek taking a few steps back so they had some distance from the gurney, and almost fell out the back. He managed to catch his footing, pulling Erica into him and hugging her tightly while she trembled against him. 

It didn’t take long for the convulsions to stop, another convenient thing about their bodies and immortality. The trembling stuck around for a bit longer, but he didn’t think that had anything to do with the electricity. 

“You’re okay,” he promised, pressing his lips to her temple. “You’re okay, I’ve got you. I’m right here, I’ve got you.” 

She was gripping the back of his jacket so hard she was pulling it off his shoulders. He just tightened his hold on her, continuing to reassure her that he was right there, she was okay, they didn’t get her, he would _never_ have let them get her. 

He didn’t know how long they stayed there, but eventually a car approached from the ridge above, dirt and stones hitting the undercarriage. When it skid to a halt, he heard Boyd shouting for them. Erica pulled away from Derek immediately and jumped out of the truck. When he followed her, she and Boyd had already found one another, hugging tightly and clutching one another for dear life. 

Kira was sliding down the side of the incline, eyes on Derek, inspecting him for injuries. He waved at her briefly to show he was fine, but she still came over to him and gave him a thorough once-over. 

As if he could honestly get injured. 

“I’m glad I listened to your gut,” he admitted. 

“Me too,” she said, turning to look at Boyd and Erica. “They got far.” 

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Closest call we’ve had.” 

Considering they had once _all_ been caught, to realize this was the closest meant Gerard had to be running out of time something fierce. He wanted them, because if he didn’t get them, he was going to die. 

“We passed bodies on the road,” Kira said quietly, gaze still on the pair. Isaac had made his way down the incline now as well and he was hugging Boyd and Erica tightly, the three of them pressed together almost desperately, as if needing reassurance that they were all still there and truly okay. 

“One of them was Kate Argent,” Derek said quietly. 

“I saw.” Kira turned to him. “This changes things. You killed his daughter.” 

“He tried to take my family.” Derek turned to look at her, eyes hardening. “If he didn’t want to lose her, he shouldn’t have come for us.” 

“I would have done the same,” Kira insisted. “But this is personal now.” 

“He _made_ it personal.” Derek looked back at the other three. “If he wants to keep what’s left of his family alive, he needs to stay the fuck away from mine.” 

Kira said nothing in response to that, and Derek strode over to the rest of his family. 

* * *

“How’s John doing?” 

Stiles glanced up at him when he asked the question, chewing the food in his mouth and chopsticks hovering over his plate of Chinese food. He shrugged one shoulder before looking back down, moving some ginger beef aside so he could grab at the string beans underneath. 

“He’s fine,” Stiles said. “You know, stubborn. Insists he should be able to come home, but he’s still having dizzy spells when he’s on his feet too long.” 

“I’m glad he’s up and moving around, at least.” 

“Yeah, me too.” Stiles shoved a bite of food into his mouth. 

Derek had been up late the night before and ended up napping a majority of the day. Boyd woke him up for him to eat, and told him to drag Stiles out of his room to do the same, since they hadn’t managed to get him to stop obsessing ever since they got home. 

They hadn’t gone on any more jobs since the disaster that almost lost them Erica. They knew they still had one facility left to take down that had samples of their blood, but their close call had them deciding to hold off before attempting another hit. 

Stiles had been particularly upset when they got back and told him what happened. He hadn’t found anything in any of his research about what had been planned for Erica—or any one of them, really—in Arizona and he’d spent almost three days locked in his room trying to find the pieces he’d missed. 

It wasn’t his fault, but no matter how many times they told him that, he took on the guilt of what had happened. He promised he’d do more research before their next hit, whenever that was, but Derek wished he’d just cut himself some slack. 

He wasn’t infallible, and if the attack had been coordinated in a room of people and hadn’t actually gone through any emails or calls or whatever else Stiles could’ve caught, there was absolutely _no_ way for him to know what was going to happen.

It didn’t stop him from constantly apologizing to Erica and walking around like he had a doom and gloom cloud hanging over his head. Derek wished he knew how to make him feel better, but he didn’t. None of this was Stiles’ fault, and what mattered most at the end of the day was that Gerard hadn’t _won_. He hadn’t gotten Erica, or any one of them. They were still ahead in this game. 

Stiles’ phone went off in his pocket and he pulled it out to check it, then set it on the table face down without replying. 

Derek’s chewing slowed, looking from the phone to Stiles and back again. “Everything okay?” 

“Yeah, just Jackson,” Stiles said, picking up a piece of ginger beef and popping it into his mouth. “Wants to go see a movie.” 

Derek often forgot that Jackson and Scott were back. Unfortunately summer had arrived, and Jackson had shown up the same day the Arizona hit had gone wrong. It didn’t matter so much at the time given they’d been out of California when Jackson had let himself into the house, but he’d been glad to see Stiles’ guests were gone. 

Less glad when he’d come over the following day and found them back. He’d come over with Scott that time too, so that both of them got to be mad about their presence. 

And then Stiles had been angsting over what had happened for three days, so he hadn’t exactly been spending time with them. He kept insisting he was needed here, with them, but Derek didn’t want him to waste all his time helping them. He had his own life, which was much, _much_ shorter, and Derek wanted him to actually _live_ it. 

“You should go.”

“Nah, it’s fine,” Stiles insisted. 

“Stiles,” Derek said, trying to use his disappointed and frustrated voice. It worked pretty well on him, so he hoped it would work now. “Go. Hang out with your friends. Have fun. You’re allowed to enjoy yourself, you know. You don’t _work_ for us.” 

“This is kind of more important than watching the new _Mulan_ ,” Stiles argued. 

“One night off isn’t going to hurt you,” Derek insisted. “We’re not even planning anything right now. You’re literally just looking into something we’re not even going to use for at least two weeks. Go out. Have fun.” 

When Stiles still didn’t move, Derek stood and reached across the table for his phone. Stiles slapped his hand down over Derek’s before he could pull it over to his side of the table. 

“Excuse me, this is private.” 

“Tell Jackson you’re going, or I’ll wrestle it out of your hand,” Derek threatened. 

“Derek!”

“Stiles,” he said in response, eyebrows raised in challenge. 

Stiles glared at him for a long while, but as Derek was much more practised at silent staredowns, he eventually won. 

“ _Fine_. But if the movie sucks and I wasted twelve bucks on it, you’re the one I’m gonna be mad at.” 

“I’ll pay you back,” Derek said with a smirk, pulling his hand back so Stiles could pick his phone up. 

He was still scowling while he texted with Jackson, the conversation seeming to be relatively short before he tossed his phone back on the table with a clatter, face up this time. He picked his chopsticks back up, taking an angry bite of food, and glanced over when his phone buzzed. 

Stiles choked, coughing roughly and grabbing for his water, taking a few sips while Derek arched an eyebrow at him.

“You gonna live?” 

Waving one hand at Derek in dismissal, Stiles drained the glass before setting it down, coughing into his elbow a few times with his eyes watering. “Went down the wrong way,” he said tightly, clearing his throat. 

He grabbed for his phone and proceeded to text Jackson back. Derek knew whatever had been said was the cause for Stiles’ food going ‘down the wrong way’ but he didn’t call him on it. 

Stiles stared down at his phone for a long while, tapping one finger along the side of it. He was scowling at it like Jackson was the one he was annoyed at now, and when he put the phone back on the table, it was face down again. 

When Stiles picked his chopsticks back up, he moved a piece of ginger beef from one side of his plate to the other before saying, “Hey Derek?” 

“Hm?” he asked, sipping at his own water before setting it down. 

“Do you wanna come?” 

Derek paused, eyes on Stiles, but he was still playing with the same piece of ginger beef, moving it right back along to the other side where it had originally come from. For a second, Derek wasn’t positive he’d understood properly, but when it became clear based on how tense Stiles was getting the longer the silence stretched out, he let out a small sigh. 

“Stil—”

“He’d love to.” 

Both of them turned to look at the kitchen doorway, Boyd walking into the room and heading for the fridge. 

“We’re not doing anything right now, and he doesn’t like being cooped up inside.” Boyd pulled open the fridge, grabbed a Coke, then shut it again. He turned to lean back against it, uncapping his drink and taking a swallow, eyes locked on Derek, as if daring him to contradict what he’d just said. 

“It’s no—”

“It’s a movie theatre,” Boyd argued. “It’s dark, and no one is going to be looking at you. They’re going to be looking at the screen. What is it you said? ‘You’re allowed to enjoy yourself’?” 

Derek clenched his jaw at having words he’d just used on Stiles thrown back in his face. Boyd was still staring at him, looking more menacing in this one moment than Derek had ever seen him. He was telling him to _go_ , or else he’d make him regret staying. 

“Fine,” he bit out between clenched teeth. 

“Really?” Stiles sounded so ridiculously happy that it was hard to hold onto his anger at Boyd. 

He turned away from the smug look on Boyd’s face and nodded to Stiles. “ _One_ movie. That’s it.” 

“One movie,” Stiles agreed, nodding emphatically. “Yeah, sounds great!” He grabbed his phone and turned it back over, texting something to Jackson with a huge grin on his face. Within five seconds, it began to buzz in his hand.

Stiles snorted, but got to his feet while answering, moving out of the kitchen. “You read what I said, why are you calling me?” he asked while heading down the corridor. 

Boyd moved up behind him at the table, Derek glaring down into his plate. 

“One moment, Theodoros. You can have one moment. It’s enough. With him, it’s enough.” 

Derek said nothing in response, listening to Boyd leave the room. He stood to clear the table, since Stiles was obviously done eating and it sounded like they needed to head out soon. When he turned, he paused when he found Kira leaning against the wall just outside the kitchen doorway, same as the last time something like this had happened. 

“You’re on his side, then?” he asked her. 

“You know I don’t take sides,” she reminded him. “But in this case, I don’t disagree with him.” 

Derek scoffed and turned his back on her, moving to throw the food out before washing the dishes. Kira came up beside him, leaning back against the counter so she could see his face, inspecting every inch of it. 

_“You’re allowed to have things you want,”_ she said softly in Japanese. 

_“This is going to hurt later,”_ he insisted in the same language, turning the water off roughly and bracing both hands against the counter. 

_“It is going to hurt whether you have your moment or not.”_ Kira’s gaze turned to the door. _“For all of us.”_

Derek shifted his eyes to look at her, and saw for the first time how much this time in Beacon Hills had cost her. Had cost all of them. Before, it was just Derek. He had this thing, this weird relationship with a lonely kid on the other end of the phone. But now they were here. Now they all knew him. 

He wasn’t just a voice on the other end of the phone that Derek spoke to anymore. He was a real person. 

And she was right. It was going to hurt for all of them. 

_“Don’t regret your choices,”_ she said, looking back at him. _“Because unlike him, you will be regretting them for an eternity.”_

Derek heard thumping footsteps coming back down the stairs and turned in time for Stiles to enter the kitchen. He was holding Derek’s usual hat in his hand and had a smile on his face. 

“Jackson already bought the tickets so we’re gonna meet him at the theatre. Ready?” He held the hat out. 

Glancing at Kira, she just gave him a pointed look before pushing off the counter and moving in front of him to head for the opening that led to the dining room. He watched her go, then turned back to Stiles, moving forward to take the hat from his hand and putting it on. 

“Let’s go.”

Stiles turned on his heel to lead the way out of the house. They took the Jeep, even though Derek honestly wasn’t sure it would survive the ride. The thing was practically falling apart, the fact that it was still running had to be some kind of black magic. 

When he joked about that with Stiles, the other man reminded him—quite rudely, considering he was doing an impersonation of _him_ —that magic wasn’t real. Derek just shoved him but couldn’t help smiling. Especially when Stiles started laughing at his own imitation and couldn’t get himself to stop. 

Scott was already there when they arrived, and Jackson showed up not long after. They had good seats, and while Jackson complained about it, he let Derek sit on the outside seat because Stiles kept arguing with him that he didn’t like being boxed in. Which was true, though Derek didn’t remember telling Stiles that, so he was still as freakishly observant as always. 

Derek was sure the movie was good, but honestly, he didn’t actually know, because he spent almost the entire time with his head tilted to the side, watching Stiles as he stared up at the screen. 

* * *

“I don’t like it.” 

Derek turned at the words, in the process of sheathing his sword and straightening. He threw the strap of it over his shoulder and moved towards Stiles, who was scowling in the corridor with his arms crossed. 

“Stiles, we’ve gone over everything a hundred times. Everything is going to be _fine_.” Derek grabbed one of his shoulders, squeezed tightly, and then moved past him to head for the stairs. “You’re still worrying about what happened to Erica.” 

“Of course I’m still worrying,” Stiles insisted, following him down to the first floor, where the others were finishing up with the gear. “Derek, something feels _wrong_ about this one.”

“You said everything checks out,” Boyd said, picking up one of the duffels and throwing it over his shoulder. 

“It _does_ but—” Stiles let out an annoyed sound, raking one hand through his hair, clearly agitated. “I just feel like something isn’t right. I mean, how is it that in all the digging I did, this facility _never_ came up?” 

“You said it was buried pretty far in,” Erica said with a shrug. “Makes sense you missed it.” 

“I didn’t _miss_ it though,” Stiles argued. “I went through everything with a fine tooth comb. I was _thorough_. This place—something about it feels like a set-up.” He turned to Derek. “I’m serious, this is a bad idea.” 

“Stiles.” Derek grabbed his closest shoulder again. “You’re over-thinking this. This place was hidden, it’s why you didn’t find out about it during your initial search. You didn’t even know that you were looking for it. It’s gonna be fine, we’ve done things like this a hundred times.”

He looked frustrated. Stiles looked like he wanted to shake him and tell him to _listen_. And Derek _had_ listened. All of them had. Attentively, even. 

Stiles was just worried because of the close call two weeks ago, but they were used to this. They knew what to expect, and they couldn’t die. Sure, maybe they’d get caught, but really, that was a possibility every time they left to hit a SilverCorp facility. 

Besides, they knew if they didn’t come back, Stiles would figure something out. His dad was awake now, which meant his contact—who was confirmed as being Chris Argent, though John still hadn’t called him since waking—could help. They would be okay, it would be _fine_. 

“Derek,” Stiles insisted, following him out of the house when they moved to load up the SUV. “I’m serious, this one is _bad_. We can–we can do another one. _Any_ other one. We can leave this one for now.” 

“It’s the closest one to here,” Derek said, pulling open the driver’s side door and holding his sword out for Kira to grab while she headed to the back. “I don’t like a SilverCorp location so close to your place.” 

“That’s what I mean though!” Stiles insisted loudly. Derek cut him a sharp look at that, because it was almost midnight and they didn’t need an audience. Stiles didn’t seem to care, because he didn’t lower his voice when he continued. “I’ve never _heard_ of SilverCorp being in Sacramento. And I don’t _miss_ things. That’s kind of the point of being _obsessive_. This feels planted.” 

“Stiles,” Derek said again while the others finished up with the gear and climbed into the SUV. “It’s gonna be fine. We’ll be back in a few hours. I promise. I’m coming back.” 

Stiles let out a harsh exhale, and he probably would’ve kept arguing all night, but Derek climbed into the car, told him to go back inside, and shut the door. He started the car, but didn’t pull away until Stiles at least went back across the street. Once he was back on his own driveway, Derek eased away from the curb and started down the street. Stiles watched them anxiously from the driveway, like he always did when they left for a job. 

He didn’t like how anxious he was. It was making _Derek_ anxious. But he knew it was just residuals of the close call from their last job. Stiles wasn’t used to them almost getting caught like that, but this wasn’t the first time for them. 

And really, the fact that this location had been kept so hidden was more of a reason for them to head out there. Stiles had been continuing to look into the remaining locations to ensure security was still something he could help with and that they could handle when he’d found a waybill for a delivery to a building in Sacramento. It had been a fluke, really. That he’d found it at all. Like a mistake, someone having put the delivery in the system. 

Upon digging into it, he’d found out there was another secret research lab in downtown Sacramento. Apparently it was a front for SilverCorp, the building didn’t have their logo on it, but it was definitely one of theirs. He’d looked into it all, they’d discussed everything about it, from the security, to the floorplans, to the research being done there. 

They’d addressed it all. It was no different than any other job. A bit harder to burn down without risking the neighbouring towers, but as long as they got rid of the important stuff—namely, anything pertaining to them—the rest didn’t matter. They could set a small fire, destroy what needed to be destroyed, and get out before the firemen arrived. The fire would be small enough for them to contain and hopefully wouldn’t damage any of the neighbouring buildings too badly. Maybe some water damage, possibly smoke damage, but nothing further. 

And it wasn’t far, either. Sacramento was only about an hour or so from Beacon Hills, which was _much_ closer than the other closest location over the border in Nevada. That proximity especially Derek didn’t like. He didn’t want a SilverCorp location so close to the Stilinski household. John was still in the hospital, and Stiles was home alone whenever they were doing a job. He didn’t want anything to happen to either of them, and he knew the others didn’t, either. 

Derek glanced at Kira in the rearview mirror, her head turned to look out the window and expression locked down. 

“We’re not wrong, right?” Derek asked her, Kira turning to meet his eye in the mirror. “This isn’t a trap, right?” 

“It doesn’t _feel_ like a trap for us,” she said.

“But?” Boyd asked, because they all heard it. 

“I don’t know.” She looked out the window again. “His anxiety was catching. I’m not feeling as confident about this as I did an hour ago.” 

Derek’s hands tightened around the steering wheel, but he managed not to turn around. They passed the sign proclaiming they were leaving Beacon Hills, and no one said a word. 

It wasn’t a long drive, but it felt almost endless with the gnawing anxiety and uncertainty. Stiles’ reaction to their departure wasn’t sitting well with any of them, even though Derek was _still_ convinced it was nerves about what had happened to Erica. Stiles hadn’t experienced that before, so it was _normal_. Of _course_ he was going to feel uncomfortable. And especially finding a new location, he’d think he was messing up again, doing something wrong. 

But he wasn’t. Everything was fine. They were going to go in like they’d done a thousand times before in many different countries for multiple reasons. It was all going to work out and be fine. 

Derek still couldn’t shake the uneasy feeling though. 

He parked on a side street a few blocks from the building they were going to. Getting there without being noticed was a bit harder, because Sacramento was a big place and downtown still had a lot of traffic regardless of the hour. They managed to get there relatively under the radar and Boyd got them in through the back entrance. 

There was a guard at the security desk at the front, but Kira took care of him, she and Isaac tying him up and bringing him outside so he wasn’t caught in the fire. Erica reviewed the camera feed, and it looked like they were in luck because the place had minimal security in way of guards. Most of it looked to be technological. 

Derek frowned when he noticed one of the screens flicker, but it was so slight that he ignored it. Probably just faulty wiring. 

They took the stairs up to the closest floor with a guard they needed to take out, moving quickly and silently. Boyd exited the stairwell first, and he paused once he was through the door. 

“What is it?” Derek asked softly, moving slowly out after him, gun at the ready. 

He lowered it when he walked out onto the floor, looking around and trying not to panic. 

It was empty. Completely gutted. The entire floor looked like it was undergoing some kind of renovations, with only metal support beams visible, the rest of it completely open with large floor-to-ceiling windows along the entire outside wall. 

They hadn’t seen this on the cameras, and Derek felt bile rising in his throat when he realized what he’d noticed. The screen had flickered because it was on a loop. Nothing they’d seen downstairs was _real_. 

“What the fuck?” Isaac muttered, following him out, keeping his gun up.

But there was no need, because the place was empty. Derek could _see_ that it was empty. 

“Spread out?” Boyd asked uncertainly. “Check the rest of the floor?” 

Before Derek could say anything, a loud trill echoed through the empty space and all five of them aimed in that direction. There was no one there, but Derek could see something white flashing on the ground. Frowning, he checked around himself quickly while moving forward, Boyd and Isaac flanking him while Erica took up the rear and Kira guarded the stairs. 

Derek moved slowly, debris and pieces of leftover drywall cracking under his boots until he finally stopped and stared down at what had caught their attention. 

It was a cell phone. Derek had kind of already ascertained that, but he didn’t understand. 

He wanted to ignore it, and normally he would have, except it was on top of a piece of paper that had ‘Theodoros of Halki’ written in large black letters. That was a little harder to ignore. 

Bending down, Boyd hissed his name, but he picked up the phone. It had stopped ringing, likely gone to voicemail since it had taken them so long to reach it, but as soon as he straightened with it in his hand, it began to ring again. 

The caller said ‘Gerard Argent.’ 

“He knows we’re here,” Isaac said. “That’s not comforting.” 

Derek stared at the phone for a few seconds, shifted his gaze to look down at his real name, then swiped the green button across the screen before putting the phone to his ear. 

_“Hello Theodoros,”_ a man’s voice said. _“Or it’s Derek now, isn’t it? Derek Hale?”_

“Gerard Argent,” he said in answer. 

He’d never spoken to the man before, but he’d have recognized his voice even without the caller display confirming it. They’d watched enough news releases that he’d know this voice anywhere. He sounded a little rough though. It was scratchier than he remembered it being, and he wondered if the cancer was finally doing its job and killing the motherfucker. 

_“I’ve been looking forward to meeting you. Now more than ever.”_

“If this is about your illness, we can’t help you,” Derek said. “You can chase us until your last breath, but you cannot be like us.”

 _“We’ll see about that,”_ he said darkly. _“I have plans for you, Mr. Hale. But that isn’t why I called. You see, I understand that death is a natural occurrence. All things must inevitably meet their end, and while I’d like to delay my own as long as I can, no father ever wants to outlive their children.”_

So this was about Kate then. Derek wasn’t exactly surprised, he knew as well as Kira that Gerard wasn’t going to take this lying down. He just didn’t know what he was hoping to achieve by sending them to an empty building. Was he going to blow it up with them inside? They would survive that, they’d survived it before. 

_“After you murdered my daughter, I asked myself: how do you hurt someone who can’t be hurt? What could I possibly do to you to inflict the same amount of pain that you caused me? Physical pain, while still effective, isn’t quite the same. No, I needed to hurt you emotionally.”_

Derek could feel his heart slowly but surely begin to increase in speed at those words. He couldn’t know. There was no way for him to know. The fact that it was Sacramento was just a coincidence. There was nothing tying them to him, _nothing_.

Gerard could not _possibly_ know about him! 

_“Your little friend probably should have considered that money also buys hackers. And the ones I paid for are quite a bit more experienced than he is.”_

Derek’s heart hit his feet. 

_“Mieczyslaw Stilinski. Stiles, right? That’s what you call him?”_

No. This wasn’t happening, this was—this could _not_ be happening. Gerard couldn’t know about him, Stiles had promised. He’d _promised_ that no one could trace any of this back to him! 

_“It’s quite a drive back to Beacon Hills, Derek. I’d suggest you get to it.”_

The line clicked.

Derek’s hand fell from his ear and he turned on his heel, eyes searching. The stairs would take too long, he couldn’t get down them fast enough. The windows were too thick, he’d waste time breaking through. But the elevator shaft... the doors were open and roped off. 

He bolted for the elevators, Boyd shouting after him, asking him what was going on. Derek didn’t have time. He did _not_ have time. He had to get to Stiles _now_. 

Fuck, it was probably too late. It had been—they’d been gone for over an hour! They’d just _left him there_! 

Fucking _alone_! 

Erica shouted his name when Derek flew into the empty elevator shaft. The fall was longer than he felt like it should have been. They’d only gone up two floors, but the lobby itself had a high ceiling so the fall was more along four stories. He didn’t die when he landed, but he broke a lot of bones, crying out and clenching his hand around the phone he still held. 

He dragged himself forward on his arms while his bones snapped back into place, begging for them to go faster, _faster_! It was still better than going down the stairs because he was already back on his feet and stumbling for the back entrance before he heard any sign of his family following. 

Looking around when he exited, his legs were good enough for him to start running towards the street, Derek skidding to a halt on the sidewalk and catching sight of a car parked at one of the meters. He ran for it, ignoring the few people around, and smashed his elbow through the driver’s side window. 

He didn’t have time to get back to the SUV. He didn’t have time to do anything. He needed to get to Stiles _right now_. He wished he could just fucking _teleport_ there! 

Climbing behind the wheel, he tore the bottom of the steering column off and hot-wired the car. His hands were shaking almost badly enough that it took him much longer than it should have, but the car eventually started and he slammed on the gas once he’d shifted it into gear. 

Turning around in the middle of the street as Kira appeared through the front doors of the building, Derek tore off back towards Beacon Hills. 

His family was fine. They would be fine. Nobody was even in the _fucking_ building, it was all a set-up. It was a trap. 

But not for them. No, it was a fucking trap for _him_. Just for him. So that he would go. So that they would all go, and leave Stiles behind. Leave him _alone_ , just as he’d always been. 

Derek grabbed the phone he’d thrown onto the passenger seat when he’d been hot wiring the car, unlocking it with a press of a button and tapping the phone icon. He dialled the number he knew by heart, the one he’d called so many times in the past twenty years that it was practically burned into the back of his eyeballs, the one he knew nobody else but his family ever used. 

Hitting the call button, he brought the phone to his ear while he blew through a red light. There were barely any cars on the road anyway, it was fine, _he_ was fine. He was perfectly _fucking_ fine, but Stiles... 

The line rang. 

And rang.

And rang. 

“Come on,” Derek muttered, feeling like his heart was trying to beat right out of his chest. “Pick up the phone, come on! Stiles! Come on, please, _please_! Pick up the phone, Stiles!” 

The line clicked. _“Hi, you’ve reached the Stilinski house—”_

“Fuck!” Derek hung up and only refrained from throwing the phone violently against the windshield because he didn’t want to destroy it. “ _Fuck_!” He dialled the number again, bringing it back to his ear. 

It rang over and over, just like it had before. The line clicked. _“Hi, you’ve rea—”_

“Don’t do this,” Derek ordered, hanging up. “Don’t do this to me. Don’t do it!” 

He pounded one fist repeatedly against the steering wheel, feeling like he was about to go insane. He was so fucking _far_! He didn’t know what to _do_! 

“Fuck!” he bellowed, his voice echoing in the car. “Fuck! Fuck you, Stiles! _Fuck_!” 

This couldn’t be happening to him, it really couldn’t. He was going to lose his God damn fucking _mind_! 

Derek sped like he’d never sped before. The car he’d stolen was whining angrily at how fast he was making it go, but he did _not_ care. He forced it to go faster, _faster_ , _**faster**_. He had to get back to Beacon Hills. 

He didn’t know how long it took him. Certainly not an hour. Maybe not even forty-five minutes. He’d never driven so fast in his entire life and when he screamed around the corner that led to Stiles’ house, he was surprised the whole damn neighbourhood didn’t wake up. 

Slamming on the brakes and skidding a good few feet past the house, Derek exploded out of the car and raced for the front door. The living room light was on, but everything else was dark. He knew this was a trap. He knew he was about to get caught, but he didn’t care. 

He did _not_ care. Gerard could have him, he could take him, he could do anything he _wanted_ to him.

As long as he didn’t touch Stiles.

Please _Gods_ just not Stiles! 

Derek slammed into the locked door so hard his shoulder burned and the wood cracked before the door gave and he stumbled into the house. He tripped over his own feet in the entrance, grabbing at the wall to avoid falling, and had just cleared the archway into the living room when hands were on him. 

It was what he’d been expecting, so he wasn’t surprised. He knew people were there, but even as they wrestled him to the ground, his eyes searched until they landed on Stiles. 

He was kneeling beside the sofa, a man standing right behind him and holding his arms in place in a brutal grip. He had a split lip, a darkening eye, and bruises forming around his throat. His shirt was ripped at the collar, and there were spatters of blood along the front that didn’t appear to be his. Whatever had happened when the men had entered the house, they had not taken him down easily. He’d fought back. 

Despite that, they’d still won. It made sense, even Derek had gotten overpowered, but Stiles had definitely put up a fight. He looked pale, and scared. He was injured, but he was alive. 

He was _alive_. 

“Stiles,” he said, struggling to pull free from the hands on him, even as his face was slammed down against the floor, cheek pressing hard against the wood as someone’s foot put pressure against his temple. There were too many hands on him, he couldn’t break loose, and he could feel zip-ties being secured around his wrists, people trying to do the same to his ankles. 

Derek didn’t care, because Stiles was okay. He was pale, and scared, and clearly upset at the sight of Derek being wrestled down like an animal, but he was okay. 

That was all Derek cared about. He was _okay_. 

There were more men in the living room with Stiles, all of them standing alert but keeping their distance from Derek since it was clear he was under control. Stiles’ eyes shifted to the side and Derek grunted and tried to move his head to see what he was looking at, but the foot against his temple was making that difficult. 

It wasn’t a problem anyway, because a large, intimidating-looking man exited from the dining room, walking slowly and looking down at what he was doing. Derek felt his heart beginning to pound in his chest when he saw he was slowly screwing a silencer onto the end of a Glock. 

And he was heading for Stiles. 

“Wait,” Derek said, feeling bile rising in his throat and redoubling his efforts to get free. “Wait, _wait_!” 

Stiles’ chest was rising and falling rapidly while his eyes tracked the man approaching him. He jerked hard in the grip of the man holding him, but it looked like he was being held too securely, because he didn’t get far. 

“Wait, _stop_!” Derek shouted. 

When the large man stopped beside Stiles, silencer securely attached to the end of his gun, he pressed the barrel against Stiles’ temple and turned to look at Derek. 

Stiles’ gaze shot back to him as well, and Derek wanted to die. 

He wanted to fucking die and stay dead for once in his _fucking_ life, because this couldn’t be happening. 

Not Stiles.

_Not Stiles!_

“Gerard Argent wanted you to have this,” the man said. 

“Der—” 

Stiles didn’t even get his name out before Derek saw blood explode from his temple, spattering against the couch beside him, and his body began to fall forward, the man behind him letting him go so his lifeless form could crash face-first into the carpet.

Derek saw red before everything went black. 

**TBC...**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Tags/Warnings:  
> \- There is a lot of violence in this chapter, including death by shrapnel, Derek yeeting himself down an elevator shaft, and a descriptive death via headshot.  
> \- Erica is electrocuted in this chapter and unable to free herself (she is strapped down and electrocuted and shot repeatedly to keep her in line). I consider this to be mild torture so just warning about it.
> 
> Obligatory Copyright Shit:  
> \- Teen Wolf (c) Jeff Davis  
> \- The Old Guard (c) Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernández  
> \- Mulan (c) Disney


	7. One Way or Another

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional tags/warnings at the end of the chapter.

He honestly couldn’t remember anything. Well no, that wasn’t true. He remembered almost too much, and he would never stop seeing Stiles die. Over and over and over again in his head.

But he didn’t remember anything that happened after that moment. He knew he’d gotten free, because the zip-ties they’d secured around his wrists were gone, the sensitive skin covered in blood, meaning he’d done _something_ to free himself. 

He knew there had been a lot of bullets, because his shirt was riddled with holes and was sticking to his skin uncomfortably. 

He knew every single person still in the room had died by his hand, because the entire living room was decorated with blood and all the men were lying dead, littered throughout the room. Some even looked like they’d been trying to escape, make a break for it, save themselves from the immortal who was out for blood. Derek only noticed one who’d managed it, because the huge man who’d shot Stiles was nowhere to be seen. 

Either Derek had torn him to unrecognizable pieces, or he’d managed to get away. He’d deal with that later if that was the case, because he couldn’t think about it right now. 

All he could think about was what had just happened. And he knew all of his observations _had_ happened, but he didn’t remember any of it. 

All he kept seeing, over and over, was the blood exploding out of Stiles’ head. The way his eyes dimmed and his body fell. It was going to stay with him for the rest of his life. Every time he blinked, that was what he was going to see. 

Derek fell to his knees in front of Stiles’ lifeless form, feeling like he couldn’t breathe. _Wishing_ he couldn’t breathe. He would give anything for this to be the end of him. For him to just finally die, so he could escape this. 

He couldn’t remember the last time he’d cried. It had been centuries, maybe even millennia. He hadn’t had a reason to cry for a long time, but he cried now. 

His hands shook as he reached for Stiles. He’d promised John he’d look out for him, that he would stay with him. He’d promised himself that he wouldn’t let anything happen to Stiles. This was the one person he couldn’t hurt, the _one person_ he was going to protect. He wanted him to live a long, happy, _healthy_ life. He was supposed to meet someone, have a family, grow old, be _happy_. 

Instead he was limp in Derek’s arms as he dragged him closer, pulling him against himself and burying his face in his neck. It wasn’t supposed to be like this. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

He never should have come here. 

He should have paid the bills from Canada, stayed in Squamish. He could have called, checked in, made sure Stiles was okay. But he shouldn’t have come. Stiles had grown up alone, he was used to being alone. Derek should’ve just left him alone.

It would have made him sad. It probably would have hurt him, being alone. Going through this alone. 

But he would’ve been _alive_. At the end of the day, Derek wouldn’t have gotten him killed. 

He kept waiting for the sirens, for the police, for people to show up at the door and ask what the fuck had happened. He kept expecting people to have heard something, to _care_ that Stiles was fucking _dead_.

But he heard nothing. It was like Gerard Argent had murdered everyone in the surrounding houses so that when his goons started shooting at Derek, nobody would call the police. Maybe they were all dead, maybe he’d paid them off to look the other way, maybe he’d knocked them out, he didn’t know. He just wished someone, _anyone_ , would fucking walk in and put him out of his misery.

Please, just someone help him and put him out of this misery. It was like acid was being pumped through his veins. Everything hurt, he felt like his head was going to explode, his chest just _ached_ and he wanted it to end. 

He held Stiles more tightly against himself, feeling the sob more than hearing it as he cried like he hadn’t in as long as he could remember. This couldn’t be real, he couldn’t lose him. 

This couldn’t be happening. 

He heard tires screech outside and hoped it was the police. He hoped it was Parrish, that he’d walk in, see the carnage, shoot Derek in the head. He hoped he’d shoot him and he’d stay dead. Derek couldn’t do this, he couldn’t live in a world without Stiles in it. This couldn’t be happening. 

But it wasn’t Parrish. It wasn’t someone who could make the pain go away. If anything, it was someone who was going to make it even worse. 

He heard the harsh exhale from behind him before slow steps started moving closer. A hand fell onto his shoulder, squeezing tightly enough to hurt, but he barely even felt it. He couldn’t feel anything more than the pain in his chest. 

Fuck, why him?

_Why him?!_

“Derek,” Boyd said, voice tight with grief. 

That was all he said. Like he didn’t know what else to say. Which made sense because there was nothing _to_ say. Nobody could say anything in a situation like this. 

He knew the rest of his family was there. He was sure they were standing with Boyd. He was positive they wanted to comfort him, to help him, to make this hurt go away.

But they couldn’t. No one could make this hurt go away. Because Derek loved Stiles. He’d never loved anyone as much as he’d loved Stiles in his entire fucking three thousand years on this fucking planet. 

And Stiles was _gon_ —

There was a loud, harsh inhale right in his ear before the body he was holding jerked in his arms and Boyd’s hand convulsed against his shoulder. 

Derek froze, his eyes still clenched shut and face buried in Stiles’ neck. Boyd’s hand tightened even more on his shoulder, but he didn’t open his eyes. He didn’t dare. He could feel harsh breathing against his neck, Stiles shifting in his arms, hands coming up to grab at the back of his jacket and he couldn’t. 

If he moved, if he dared _breathe_ , the dream would shatter. Because he knew he was dreaming. He knew this wasn’t real, it couldn’t be real, and he didn’t want to face reality. Not again. He needed to stay in this moment, right here and now, with Stiles moving in his arms and breathing against his skin. 

“Derek.” And fuck, that was his _voice_. It was his voice, and Derek exhaled without meaning to, but Stiles was still holding him back, and this was actually happening, this was real, it was _real_. 

“Holy shit,” Isaac said from behind him and Derek couldn’t. 

He had to know. He had to be sure. 

He pulled away from Stiles, shifting his hands to grab at his face, and stared right into his brown eyes. 

His eyes that were wide, and open, and full of _life_. The darkening spot around his eye was gone, his lips were smooth and unblemished, his neck a pale column of uninjured skin. Derek’s ring finger was touching the blood on Stiles’ temple from the exit wound, except there _was_ no wound. There was nothing there but the blood that gave even a _hint_ of an injury ever being there. 

“Stiles,” Derek breathed. 

“What the fuck ha—”

Derek kissed him. 

This was the one thing he wanted. The one thing he’d ever wanted. Stiles was _everything_ he’d ever wanted. And he was allowed to have it, have _him_. Stiles was alive, he was _alive_ , and he was—

He was like them. 

Stiles was one of them. He was alive, and he was here, and he would _always_ be here and _Derek could have this_! 

Stiles’ skin was warm beneath his palms, and his mouth was wet, and his lips were fucking _perfect_ and Derek never wanted to stop kissing him. He pulled away so he could kiss at the corner of his mouth, his cheek, his forehead, back down to his lips. Stiles was alive, and Derek was allowed to have this, and this couldn’t be real, but it was, and Derek couldn’t stop. 

He’d never wanted anyone as much as he wanted Stiles, and he’d been taken from him, except he’d been given _back_ to him and Derek had never been so glad for his curse in his entire fucking _life_ because he had Stiles.

He had him back. _He had him **back**!_

When he pulled away again, he couldn’t help the laugh that escaped him, still gripping Stiles’ face between his hands and pressing their foreheads together, closing his eyes and breathing him in.

Gods, he was _alive_. He’d been dead for so long that this seemed impossible. But he remembered Isaac’s second death. The first time he’d died after his initial death from the plague. He’d been dead almost five minutes. The more they died, the faster they came back. 

But it was possible their first deaths always took longer. Derek had never been there for anyone’s first death. Maybe the first one took ten, fifteen, _twenty_ minutes. He didn’t know. He had no idea how much time had passed. All he knew was that however many minutes it had been, it had been _too long_. Any amount of time Derek was alive and Stiles wasn’t was too fucking long. 

Stiles was gripping Derek’s sleeves with both hands, breathing hard and tugging at the material. 

“That was fucking scary as shit,” Stiles said shakily. 

“I’m sorry,” Derek whispered, opening his eyes and pulling away so he could kiss Stiles’ forehead and pull him into another tight hug. “I’m so sorry.” 

“Fuck,” Stiles breathed against Derek’s skin. “I didn’t think—I thought I was a goner for sure. I didn’t think you were going to make it in time.” 

Derek froze, feeling Stiles trembling against him. 

He... didn’t know. 

He thought Derek had saved him. He thought... 

He didn’t know he’d died. That Derek _hadn’t_ saved him. That he’d been too slow.

That he’d been too _late_. 

The others were silent behind him, no one wanting to say anything. He could understand, because this was kind of a first for them. None of them had known what immortals were when they’d died, but Stiles... 

He knew about them. He knew immortals existed. He also knew the parts of immortality that were awful, and now Derek was going to have to tell him that he was one of them. 

That he _hadn’t_ saved him. That he hadn’t been fast enough. That Stiles had _died_ and the only reason he was alive right now was because he was like them. 

Immortal. 

“Stiles,” he said quietly, pulling away and bringing his hands up to grip his shoulders tightly. “Stiles, I-I didn’t save you.” 

He blinked at him. “What?” 

“When he came out...” Derek didn’t know how to say it. How to admit he’d failed. “I wasn’t—it happened too fast. And they had me pinned, so I couldn’t—I just _watched_ when he...” 

Stiles’ breathing was coming faster and faster, eyes wide as he watched Derek struggle to get the words out. 

“But that’s...” Stiles inhaled sharply once. Twice. “But I didn’t—”

“You did,” Derek said softly. “Stiles, I’m sorry. I couldn’t save you.” 

“But I’m—” Stiles cut himself off, eyes lowering, as if he was processing the last thing he could remember. 

Then, very slowly, he reached up with one hand and touched his temple where the bullet went in. He brought his fingers back down, staring at them as he rubbed his thumb against the blood on his middle finger. 

A sharp exhale left him, and Derek knew he’d figured it out. 

Stiles had always been smart. 

“I need to sit down,” he said, very quietly. 

Derek swallowed hard, hands still gripping his shoulders. “Stiles, you _are_ sitting down.” 

“Oh.” 

He kept staring down at his bloody fingers, like he was trying to figure this whole thing out. Like there should’ve been some kind of explanation for why this happened, how he’d come back, _why_ he was one of them. 

But there wasn’t. There never was. It just _happened_. 

To Derek.

To Boyd.

To all of them. 

They didn’t ask for it, they didn’t control it, they didn’t know _how_ or _why_. It just happened. 

And now, it had happened to Stiles. 

Because he was like them.

Immortal. 

“Derek,” Boyd said softly. “I know this is a lot. For all of us. But we need to go. If Argent knows about this place, we can’t stay here.” 

Those words had Stiles jerk slightly, then his eyes widened impossibly further and his head shot up. “Dad!” 

“Fuck,” Derek hissed, because Stiles was right. 

If Gerard had found him, he’d found John, too. And he was in the hospital, he was an easy target. They had to get him out. 

“We can lie low in Lodi for now,” Erica said quietly. When Derek turned to look at her, confused, she explained, “The place we got? To store the weapons? It’s in Lodi, about a half hour from here.”

Right. Derek remembered the house, just not the name of the town. It wasn’t furnished, or very big, but that wasn’t important right now. They needed to get somewhere safe. They needed to get _John_ somewhere safe since... 

Since Stiles would be fine no matter what. Because he was like them.

Fuck almighty, _thank you_ , he was like them! 

“You guys go,” Derek said, still gripping Stiles’ shoulders. “I’ll go with Stiles, get John.” 

“Derek,” Boyd insisted. He didn’t say any more, but he didn’t have to. 

Derek was in charge. He was always the one in charge. He should still _be_ in charge, but he had Stiles now. He had to think about Stiles. 

Except he had to think about the rest of his family, too. He’d already run off on them to rush back here. Without explanation. Without waiting. He’d just—left them. 

He couldn’t do that to them. Not again. _Never_ again. 

But Stiles... 

“I’ll go with Stiles,” Kira said softly, bending down beside Derek and resting a comforting hand on his opposite shoulder. “You go to Lodi with the others. We’ll get John and meet you there.” She tightened her grip. “I won’t let anything happen to him, I promise.” 

“I know,” he said, but he couldn’t take his eyes off Stiles. He tightened his grip on his shoulders to almost bruising, Stiles clenching his hands in the sleeves of Derek’s jacket. “Get your dad out. Meet us in Lodi. Don’t you dare make me wait for you.” 

Stiles nodded, though he still looked a little shaken and confused and _scared_. Derek could understand, because this was definitely a lot. For him, too. He still wasn’t entirely sure he wasn’t hallucinating this whole thing. Like he was talking to Stiles’ corpse and his family was trying to make him come back from this delusion he was having. 

Derek managed to release Stiles, but it took a few seconds for him to loosen his fingers and let go of Derek’s jacket. Boyd helped him to his feet while Kira stayed crouched, having moved her hand from Derek’s shoulder to Stiles’, speaking to him softly, coaxing him to his feet. 

Turning to look at Boyd, his chest clenched as he thought back to what he’d just done, how he’d just _abandoned_ them like that. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. 

“I know. We understand, it’s okay.” 

“Never again.” 

Boyd nodded once and offered him a small smile. “You ditch us like that again, we’ll kick your ass.” 

“Guys?” Isaac said from the door. “We really gotta go. Like, now. Because there are dead bodies all over the living room, and more goons are gonna show up, and God only knows _why_ the cops aren’t here yet but I don’t wanna press our luck.” 

Derek turned back to Stiles and Kira. She was still crouched beside him, hugging him sideways while looking up at Derek. Stiles still seemed to be half in shock. 

“Lodi,” he said. 

“Lodi,” she promised. “Be safe.”

“You too.” 

Turning away was the hardest thing he’d done in a long time, but he managed it, heading for the door. He walked past Erica and Isaac and headed out to the street. The car he’d stolen was still in the middle of the road, door hanging open and engine running. The SUV was parked haphazardly at the curb, but at least it was locked up and off. 

Considering he had the keys, he didn’t know how they’d gotten it started, but as he approached it he remembered it had come with two sets. He was glad Boyd had kept his keys on him, because Derek would’ve felt even worse if he’d stranded them in Sacramento.

Derek’s brain was kind of all over the place right then, he couldn’t stop seeing Stiles dying in his head, and he couldn’t quite reconcile that with the fact that he was still _alive_.

Because Stiles was like them. 

He climbed behind the wheel and started the car, the other four getting in as well. He glanced out the window when he saw Kira emerge from the house with one arm wrapped around Stiles’ shoulders, leading him towards his Jeep. 

“He’s gonna be okay,” Boyd promised. 

“Yeah,” Derek agreed, then shifted into drive and pulled away from the curb. He watched the two of them head for the Jeep in the rearview mirror as long as he could before they were out of sight, then he followed the roads that would lead out of town so they could head to Lodi, regroup, and figure out their next move. 

“That’s crazy,” Isaac said after a few moments of silence. “The fact that he’s one of us? Like, that’s totally insane. What are the odds?” 

“Who cares about the odds, I’m just glad he didn’t die,” Erica insisted. “When we got there, I thought... But he’s fine. He’s gonna be fine, and he’s-he’s one of us. He’s with us now. Right?” 

She directed the question at Derek, as if she wasn’t entirely sure what would happen next. 

Which he could understand because this was different. 

And Boyd said so. Because it was true. 

“He’s different,” Boyd said quietly to the occupants in general. He glanced at Derek out of the corner of his eye, but Derek kept his gaze focussed on the road. “It’s going to hurt him more. We had no one. He still has people. Friends, his father. He’s not like us. When the time comes, it’s not going to be easy for him.” 

“I know,” Derek said. Because he did. 

He _did_ know. 

Derek’s entire family had died in one fell swoop. He’d died alongside them, and woken up alone. 

Boyd was a slave, sold to the Romans when he was a child. He had no one, no friends, no family. He’d died alone. 

Kira had been chased out of her village, shunned by the people who were like family to her, treated like a monster, unloved, feared, hated. She had no one left either. 

Isaac’s friends and family had died from the Black Death. 

Erica’s friends and family had died during the French revolution. 

But Stiles? Stiles’ death was different than theirs. His wasn’t during a war, or a plague, or anything like that. His death had just been a consequence of knowing them. 

He still had his father. He had friends who cared about him, who’d come to see him during their spring break to make sure he was doing okay. A cop who stopped in every now and then to check in, a nurse who’d baked him a cake on his birthday. 

Stiles had people in his life. People who would notice when he stopped aging, when he stopped getting sick, when he never got hurt. People who would continue to age, and eventually die, all while Stiles stayed exactly as he was right now. 

He was like them in that he was immortal, but everything else was completely different. And when the time came for him to say goodbye, to disappear, to go into hiding like the rest of them...

It was going to hurt like nothing he’d ever felt before. 

Derek was selfish in that he was glad he would never have to live his life without Stiles in it from this day forward, but he also knew that his selfishness came at a price, because Stiles was going to hurt for _decades_ when everyone around him that he loved disappeared from his life.

And unlike the five of them, those people Stiles loved were never going to come back. 

“We’ll figure it out,” Derek said quietly. “We’ll... I don’t know. But we’ll figure it out.” 

Boyd said nothing beside him. Erica and Isaac were silent behind him. Derek just kept his eyes straight ahead and drove. 

As soon as they made it past the “Thank you for visiting Beacon Hills” sign, something flashed to the right, the car flew off the road with a loud ‘boom’ and everything went black. 

It was the second time in less than an hour that Derek’s vision shuttered like that, but he knew what dying felt like. The first time had been different, it had been grief and rage. This time? This was death. 

When he inhaled sharply after coming back, his vision cleared and the SUV was upside down. Erica and Boyd’s side of the car was blown to shit, something impacting that side of the car, and Boyd was grunting as he struggled to make sense of what had happened. 

“Everyone okay?” Derek asked, just to be sure they were all still in the vehicle. 

“What the fuck just happened?” Isaac demanded just as someone bent down beside Derek. 

He had enough time to jerk his head in that direction before his head snapped back. When he woke up again, inhaling sharply, he was being dragged out of the car, and before he could even think of fighting, he got another bullet to the brain. 

It was like what they’d done to Erica two weeks ago. Every time he came back, they shot him again so that he couldn’t even do anything. The second he inhaled to get air back into his lungs, he got another bullet between his eyes. 

Derek could only catch brief snippets of what was happening. He was dragged from the car. He was pulled along a path in the trees. He was out on the other side where there was some kind of back road. He was being hauled up into an armoured truck. 

And then, he woke up again in a plexiglass coffin, the lid snapping shut just as he inhaled sharply. Derek didn’t like being boxed in. He didn’t like small spaces. So this was not ideal for him and he tried to shove the lid open but they’d already snapped it down into place. It wouldn’t budge, no matter how hard he pushed at it, and when he felt wetness spray across his ankles he froze and looked down. 

There was a small hole at the bottom of the prison he was lying in, and it was slowly but steadily filling with water. 

Oh fuck.

Oh _fuck_! 

His head shot to the side and he found Erica staring right back at him from an identical coffin to his right. Her water was quite a bit higher than his. 

Shit, they were going to—fuck! 

They’d caught them once before. They’d strapped them down once before. They’d _electrocuted_ them once before.

But they’d escaped.

They always escaped. 

So they were going a different route this time. 

They were going to fill these plexiglass coffins up with water, and let them drown over and over and over again. Every time they came back, they would inhale water, suffocate, and die. They wouldn’t even have time to think, time to try _anything_. They would just wake up and immediately _die_ again. 

Derek tried to block the water coming in with his foot, but it didn’t do any good. It had already crept up the length of the coffin, the water level slowly rising up so that it would eventually submerge him completely. 

He banged on the lid, pushing all his weight against it, trying to break it, crack it, just _anything_. 

Nothing worked. Erica’s coffin was already filled with water and he tried not to look when she thrashed, trying to get air, trying to get _out_ , and then eventually went still. 

“Fuck!” Derek screamed, banging hard as the water passed his ears, moved up his temples, slowly but surely diminishing the amount of air he had left. 

Just as he inhaled deeply, water reaching the top of his case and submerging him entirely, a face appeared above him outside the plexiglass lid. It was old, and weathered, and looked like the man it belonged to had seen better days. 

Cancer had not been kind to Gerard Argent, but he seemed to be in pretty good spirits as he grinned down at Derek and waved one hand in farewell as Derek’s lungs burned, he exhaled the air he had, and inhaled water. 

Drowning definitely wasn’t one of his preferred ways to go. 

* * *

It was horrendously disorienting dying and coming back constantly without really being able to pay attention to anything. Derek knew it was mostly a precaution but he also thought maybe the method with which it was being done was to make him suffer. 

Killing Stiles hadn’t been enough for Gerard, he wanted Derek to watch his family suffocate over and over while he himself could do nothing to help them. 

While he himself suffered the same fate. 

The only comfort he had right now was that Kira and Stiles were okay. As far as he knew, anyway. He was sure Gerard had noticed one of the original five was missing, but he knew Kira would be careful on her way out of town. And when they reached Lodi and found the others missing, she’d know they were caught and hopefully run. 

He didn’t want her here, too. And he didn’t want Gerard to know about Stiles. If he knew about Stiles, Derek didn’t want to think about what he’d do to him. Either torture him in front of Derek as some kind of eternal punishment for killing his daughter, or he’d take them all apart piece by piece to discover _how_ they’d given this gift to him.

But it didn’t work that way. 

Derek hadn’t known Boyd when he’d come back to life. Or Kira, or Isaac, or Erica. They didn’t know how it happened, and no amount of torture or experimentation was going to change that. Sometimes, things just fucking _happened_. 

He had no idea how long they were in the armoured truck. Being mostly dead the entire ride tended to skew with his concept of time just a little. Eventually though, the truck stopped. He came back to life and died again while they were unloading them from the back of the armoured truck. Then he was being wheeled down a corridor. That part seemed endless, it felt like he was in that corridor for an eternity, but eventually they ended up in some kind of room. He only saw cots and medical equipment the first time he came back. Then he saw a bit more, suggesting this was some kind of lab, which made sense considering what Gerard wanted from them. 

Finally, he woke up with a sharp inhale and was actually able to breathe in _air_ so that he didn’t immediately drown again. His lungs burned from the repeated abuse, but the pain only lasted for a second before it dissipated like it always did. 

Now that he was alert again, he immediately tried to sit up, but someone shoved him back down. His wrists were shackled to the side of the bed he was in, thick metal cuffs soldered to the metal frame. He tore his wrists to shit trying to get them free, but he couldn’t. 

There were multiple people around him, some holding weapons while others worked quickly to strap him the rest of the way down. A metal bar was pulled across his shoulders, digging into him and forcing him down against the mattress beneath him. Straps were secured around his torso, across his hips, down his legs. His ankles felt like they were in the same metal cuffs as his wrists and despite knowing he couldn’t do anything to get free, he didn’t make it easy for them, struggling and bucking his hips and trying to twist every way possible. 

The last thing to go on was a metal brace across his forehead, keeping his head firmly in place so that all he could do was stare up at the ceiling. He kept tugging insistently at his wrists, feeling blood sticking to his skin, but he didn’t want this. 

_He didn’t want this!_

When they seemed satisfied he was as secure as they were going to get him, the soldiers moved back a bit more and two of the people who’d been strapping him down grabbed items from behind them. Derek tensed when he saw the flash of metal, but all they did was move to either side of him and start cutting up the length of his jacket, starting at the cuffs and making their way up. 

Erica was shouting and spitting curses somewhere to his left, and he could hear Boyd snapping at people to get the fuck off her. It wasn’t going to do any good, but Derek didn’t blame them for trying to shout their way out of this. 

Derek just breathed hard, glaring up at the ceiling, fists clenched while he tried not to panic as the scissors continued to cut through his clothing. He felt like it might have been easier to undress them _before_ strapping them down, since it seemed the two people were having trouble cutting around all the straps, but he understood why they hadn’t.

It was hard to keep people who couldn’t die contained for very long, and Gerard wasn’t willing to risk it. Derek had no idea how many men he had at the crash site, but evidently enough that he’d gotten at least three of them. 

He hadn’t heard or seen Isaac yet so it was possible he’d gotten away somehow. 

He didn’t want to think about the possibility that they’d brought him somewhere else.

When they were done cutting through his shirt and jacket, pulling the remnants of material off him, they moved down to cut through his jeans. He grit his teeth, tugging hard at one arm to attempt to free it. The rough action had the person cutting through his pants on that side jump and shift back in fear, but when it was clear he was firmly stuck in place, they slowly moved forward again and continued with their work. 

His shoes and socks were removed more easily, and he was ready to spit fire if they went for his shorts. Thankfully, they seemed satisfied with his state of undress and at least left him with that amount of dignity. 

He was still wet from his glass prison and the lab was cold, his muscles trembling in an attempt to warm him back up even as he knew it wouldn’t be that simple. He was going to be cold and uncomfortable for a _long_ time, he was sure. 

“Can we maybe turn the A/C down in here? It’s kind of cold, and I don’t want to get sick.” 

Well, that confirmed Isaac was there, at any rate. While Derek wished he wasn’t, it was better than not knowing what had happened to him. It was just as likely for him to have escaped as it was for them to have taken him somewhere else. 

When the people eventually moved away, Derek felt metal digging into his forehead as he turned his head as much as he could, eyes shifting to the side. Erica was in the bed right beside him, strapped down the same way as him. She was shaking, though Derek didn’t know if it was from fear or the cold. Honestly, as much as he was trying not to let the fear of the unknown take over, he could admit he was terrified of what was to come. 

She was in a similar state of undress as him, though he was glad they’d left her bra and underwear on. Boyd probably would have actually managed to rip free of his bonds if they’d taken that off. 

He couldn’t see past her, not how he was tied down and the limitations of how far he could turn his head, but he thought Isaac might be on her other side, with Boyd on the end. When he forced his head the other way, he saw an empty bed. That was probably for Kira. 

He hoped she was okay. 

He _really_ hoped she didn’t do anything stupid. 

She wasn’t really the impulsive type, so the chances of her coming in here half-cocked were slim, but still. They were her family, and he worried about what she might do. 

Actually, the bigger concern now was Stiles. He was _definitely_ the impulsive type, and while he was smart, and resourceful, if he knew about this, _any_ of this, he would come whether Derek begged him to stay away or not. 

The only solace Derek had in that was that at least he knew Stiles couldn’t die. That was really the only thing keeping him sane. 

No matter what happened, no matter what Argent _did_ , Stiles would not die. He would _never_ die. 

But that in and of itself was also terrifying. Because what kind of things would Gerard Argent do to him, to any of them, in his quest to unlock the secrets to their immortality? 

Derek was not expecting a comfortable visit. 

For a few minutes, nothing happened. Derek couldn’t see anything barring the limited side view and the ceiling. He could hear his family’s laboured breathing, the distinct sound of someone struggling against their bonds every now and then, as well as beeping machines and random clatter somewhere else in the room out of sight. 

It didn’t take long for people to come back. Derek tugged at his wrists when a woman approached him, wheeling some kind of machine over. He didn’t know what it was, but he wasn’t interested in finding out, either. 

He didn’t have much of a choice though, and the next few minutes was him snarling and struggling while various things were connected to him and needles were pushed beneath his skin. They took at least ten blood samples—the vials were small, so he didn’t think they took more than 100ml in total—some hair samples, skin samples, and for one very dangerous moment it looked like they were going to go for urine samples. The woman seemed to decide she didn’t need that _quite_ yet, because she cast a glance at his face and determined she wanted to live to old age. 

The woman was still putzing around on the machine beside Derek when he heard a loud hiss, like a door opening on a spaceship, and he heard one loud clap. 

“At last,” Gerard Argent said. “After all these years, I finally have the ability to move forward with my research.” 

“You fucking sack of shit!” Erica shouted angrily. “When I get out of this—”

“You should save your strength,” Gerard cut off, moving closer. “After all, we’re about to test your limits in every way imaginable. Wouldn’t want your immortality to decide now is a good time to run out.” 

“Don’t _fucking_ touch her!” Boyd bellowed. 

“She isn’t who I’m interested in.” 

Derek was fairly certain he knew who Gerard was interested in, and he was right when the man’s craggy face loomed over him a moment later, a vicious smile on his lips. He really did look awful, sallow skin, weight loss, yellow teeth. He was stubborn, and had held on for a long time, but the cancer was slowly and surely catching up with him. 

“Theodoros of Halki. You are a truly remarkable specimen.” He reached out one hand to touch Derek’s arm. He tugged hard at his wrists, but it didn’t help and he felt the old man’s calloused fingers slide along his skin. “Did you know we share the same blood type? Fascinating, don’t you think? That someone as old as you, as mysteriously unkillable as you, would have the same blood type as me.” 

“I am just a man,” Derek bit out. 

“Yes,” Gerard agreed, eyes shining madly. “But a man who has escaped death for millennia. A man who has been alive longer than anyone else on the planet. And yet, so selfish. You could share your gift, but you choose not to.” 

“It’s not a gift,” Derek snapped. “We never asked for this. You can’t _be_ like us just because you _want_ it!” 

“We’ll see,” Gerard said, then looked over at someone else. “Get him ready.” 

“Ready?” Isaac demanded. “Ready for what? Don’t touch him!” 

“Leave him _alone_!” Erica shouted, even as Derek redoubled his efforts on his bonds. 

They’d prepared too well this time, and as immortal as he was, Derek _was_ still just a man. He didn’t have super strength, or magical powers, or anything that could free him. All he had was the ability to heal and not die, so when they began to wheel him across the room, all he could do was pull at his bonds and thrash on the cot, but little else. 

The woman who’d been beside him was pushing the machine connected to him along with them while someone else was wheeling the bed around. They didn’t go far, just to a small, curtained area where Gerard followed while shrugging off his coat. 

Someone drew the curtain while the old man rolled up the sleeve of his button-down shirt, looking at another woman who’d appeared at his side and nodding once before moving to another bed laid out beside Derek’s. 

Derek recognized the new woman. Her file was sitting on the Stilinski dining room table, and he remembered reading it numerous times. Her name was Jennifer Blake, and she was Gerard’s lead scientist. She was the one who’d found a way to utilize their blood in the drugs they’d been using to keep Gerard alive this long. 

Jennifer stepped between the two of them holding some tubing in a gloved hand, and a needle between two fingers. Derek didn’t like where this was going. 

When she touched his hand, he immediately clenched it into a fist and tugged it away. Her eyes shot up to his face and hardened. 

“Hold still.” 

“Bite me,” he snapped. 

It was obvious she needed him to stop moving, because he bucked his hips and kept tugging at his wrists the entire time she was trying to push the needle into him. She eventually snapped for people to get his arm strapped down more securely and they came in with more straps. They didn’t worry so much about the rest of his body, seeming more determined to stop him from being able to move his closest arm. 

By the time they were done, he couldn’t even clench his fist, though he kept trying to jerk his shoulder to get his arm moving. It didn’t do much good and he let out a grunt when the needle was pushed into his wrist. He was sure Jennifer had done it as painfully as possible on purpose. 

“I’m curious to know how sedatives work on people like you,” Gerard said easily, as the woman shifted to turn in his direction with another needle attached to the end of the tubing she held. “Also curious about blood loss. If we drained every drop of blood from your body, how would that work? Would you stay dead for longer while it worked at replenishing all the blood you’d lost? We’re going to have so many interesting and creative deaths for you and your family.” 

Derek just grit his teeth while glaring out of the corner of his eye. Jennifer was being much more careful with Gerard, using a disinfectant on his arm, carefully locating the vein she wanted before pressing the needle in. Derek’s needle was in his Radial artery, but Jennifer had pushed Gerard’s into his Median Cubital vein. 

Direct transfusions—from one person directly to another—weren’t usually done in this day and age. Hospitals always had stored blood for required transfusions, so the act of direct transfusions where a needle was pressed into two connected people—venous for one person and arterial for another—were more from before people had determined how to safely keep blood stored for later use. 

Derek wasn’t particularly pleased to be the first in what was probably a long time to be doing this, especially since he had no _fucking_ idea what his blood in Gerard’s body was going to do to him. If he ended up immortal like the rest of them, Derek was going to find a way to throw the motherfucker into a fucking _volcano_. 

His eyes shifted down when he felt Jennifer do something at his wrist, a slight tug before he could see blood beginning to flow through from his side to Gerard’s. The old man looked pleased, lying back on the bed with one arm out and the other resting a hand comfortably on his chest. Asshole even closed his eyes while he waited for what he undoubtedly thought was going to be his salvation. 

Derek hoped they’d fucked up somehow and he and Gerard _didn’t_ have the same blood type. He hoped his blood fucking _poisoned_ him and the asshole _died_. 

He doubted it, but it was a nice thought. 

Jennifer stayed in the curtained off room with them while the transfusion took place. Derek didn’t know how much blood they took, but he didn’t feel any different. He kept waiting for it to be too much, for him to feel weak or dizzy, but maybe his blood was like the rest of him. As it left his body, there was some kind of trigger and it began to produce more to replace what was being stolen. 

He could see Jennifer taking notes from her location in the corner, watching Derek with hungry eyes and writing things down on a clipboard. 

Eventually, after what felt like an age, she moved forward again after setting her things down and stopped the transfusion, carefully removing the needle from Gerard’s arm and pressing a cotton ball to it before taping it down. 

Gerard sat up, one hand pressed against the injury and staring at Derek like he was a wonder of the world. 

“The things I’m going to achieve with you,” he said with a manic gleam in his eye. “Think of what I can do, how much people will be willing to pay to attain immortality.” 

“I can’t _give_ it to you,” Derek snapped, grunting when Jennifer literally just _ripped_ the needle from his wrist. The wound continued to bleed for only a moment before closing up, Jennifer’s eyes locked on it in fascination. 

“We’ll see, won’t we? We have a long future together, Derek Hale. I’m looking forward to seeing what we can do with you.” 

Derek bared his teeth at him, but his head snapped towards the curtain when he heard angry shouting and swearing. 

In Japanese. 

No.

Fuck, _no_!

“Looks like I have the full set,” Gerard said gleefully, getting to his feet. 

Jennifer pulled back the curtain and followed after him while two people came over and wheeled Derek back out so he could return to where he’d previously been. The bed that had been beside him when he’d gone inside had disappeared, which made sense given Kira was wheeled into the room strapped down to it a moment later. 

She was still screaming profanities in Japanese, struggling so much that the bed was creaking ominously, as if she were going to break it. Derek watched out of the corner of his eye as she was pushed into the empty spot beside him. She wasn’t fully strapped down yet, and she was still clothed, but Derek knew that wouldn’t last long. 

Kira was actually able to mostly sit up, her bonds straining against her since the metal bar wasn’t across her shoulders yet. People moved forward quickly to shove her back down, someone shouting when she bit them.

“Atta girl,” Boyd said from the other side of the room and Derek found himself smiling viciously as well. He hoped she’d torn a chunk clean out of the guy’s hand. 

“This one’s feisty,” Gerard said from somewhere by the end of Derek’s bed. “I like that. We’ll see how long it takes to break her.” 

_“Fuck you, you vile piece of shit, I hope you rot in **hell** ,”_ Kira shouted in Japanese. 

Gerard just chuckled, amused at her anger. Derek felt like he wouldn’t find it particularly funny anymore when Kira slit his throat. If anyone in this room was going to escape and murder Gerard, as much as Derek liked to think it would be him, he knew it would be Kira. 

He watched out of the corner of his eye as they continued to tie her down, Kira struggling and snapping at people, occasionally trying to bite them. They ended up getting her head secured and before long, she was just as incapacitated as the rest of them. 

When people moved forward to cut her clothes off, she got extremely creative in the ways she was planning on murdering every single one of them. Derek actually admired how unafraid she was, because it was clear she knew they were fucked, but she wasn’t going to back down anyway. 

“Really?” Gerard asked, sounding delighted. 

Derek had been so focussed on Kira that he’d completely forgotten that...

There were six of them now.

Holy shit, there were _six_ of them! And Gerard—he sounded _happy_! He sounded like...

Oh no. 

Oh _no_! Fuck no, please! Please no. This couldn’t happen, it _couldn’t_! 

“Well then, bring him in!” 

“No!” Derek shouted, hearing the frame creak when he tugged hard at his wrists, one of the straps along his over-contained arm snapping loudly. His muscles bulged as he fought with all his might to yank free, to get out of this.

They’d lived hundreds of years, some of them _thousands_. They were used to dying, to feeling pain, to going through horrible things like this over and over again.

But Stiles was new. He was—he’d literally only died _once_. His first time. He didn’t—they couldn’t do this to him! Not this!

_Not this!_

“Move that one over. Put him right beside him.” 

“No!” Derek shouted again, feeling his eyes water. They couldn’t do this! 

Fuck, they couldn’t _do_ this! 

No matter how hard he struggled though, he still couldn’t move. He couldn’t do anything as he heard the door hiss open again, wheels squeaking as they rolled along towards him, Kira’s bed shifted over a bit to allow room for one more to move between them. 

Derek stopped struggling immediately, his heart stuttering in his chest. Because—he didn’t understand. 

It was... a body bag. It was a zipped up body bag. 

His first, horrified thought was that it was John. They’d killed John, and Stiles was never, _ever_ going to forgive him for this.

But then Gerard moved forward, gleeful eyes locked on Derek, and then he unzipped the body bag and pulled the top half back. 

It was Stiles. 

Derek didn’t understand because... it was _Stiles_. 

But that... made no sense. Because Stiles wasn’t dead. He’d—Derek had _seen_ him, alive and breathing. He was fine. He’d come back. 

Stiles had come back to him.

So why was he lying there like that? He was so fucking _pale_ , and Derek could see the gunshot. He could see the bloody wound in his temple, fragments of bone, dried blood. Exactly where he’d been shot. 

Exactly how he’d died. 

But he didn’t... Derek didn’t _understand_. Stiles couldn’t be dead, he _wasn’t_ dead!

“You son of a bitch!” Erica screeched. “You fucking _son of a bitch_!” 

“If you wanted Mr. Stilinski to live a long, happy life, perhaps you shouldn’t have involved him,” Gerard said to her with a pleasant smile, moving the bed just that much closer to Derek, as if to _really_ rub it in. 

He was so still. 

Stiles was so impossibly still. His chest wasn’t moving, his skin was so _pale_ , he looked _dead_.

Stiles looked dead. And he shouldn’t have. Because even if he’d died again, even if they’d somehow killed him a second time, it was always faster than the first. He would’ve... he should’ve been back by now. He should’ve gasped awake by now. Kira had already been in the room for at _least_ five minutes before they’d wheeled him in. And they would’ve had to bring him from Beacon Hills all the way out to wherever they were. 

That took time. That took such a long time. Stiles should’ve been back by now, he... 

Derek felt like he was drowning all over again.

He’d thought, back at the house, that it was too good to be true. He’d thought that he was hallucinating, that it was all a dream, that it couldn’t be real. 

And he’d been right. His brain had broken at the idea of Stiles dying, and had tricked him into thinking that he hadn’t. That he was okay, that he was like them. But he wasn’t. 

He wasn’t like them. He was just... normal. 

And when normal people died, they stayed dead. 

Derek felt his eyes begin to water as he stared over at Stiles, feeling like he was dying all over again. He was the reason this had happened. Stiles was dead, he and his family were about to become lab rats, and Gerard Argent had...

He’d won.

Gerard Argent had won. 

“There we go,” Gerard said pleasantly, Derek’s gaze snapping up to him. He looked entirely too pleased as he bent a bit closer. “That’s how you hurt someone who can’t be hurt. A small price to pay for taking my daughter from me.” 

“Fuck you!” Isaac shouted angrily. “You’re fucking _dead_!” 

“Oh, I don’t think so.” Gerard straightened, looking over at Isaac and chuckling. “I think you and I are going to become very well acquainted over the next few years.”

He heard a clang, like Isaac had tugged at something, but Gerard just laughed, like he found their bravado amusing. 

“Did you want me to wait until morning?” Jennifer asked, sounding excited. “Or should I start now?” 

Gerard looked down at Derek appraisingly, rubbing absently at the cotton taped to his arm. 

“You’re here, you might as well start now. When the others show up for their shift, we can move to more interesting tests, but for the moment you’re welcome to do as you like.” He turned back to her. “Let me know what you find.” 

“Of course.” 

Before turning away, Gerard smiled down at Derek. “Have a good night. I’ll see you again soon.” 

Derek grit his teeth, hips jerking slightly in an attempt to get a bit more mobility, but it didn’t do much. He just watched Gerard walk away until he was out of his range of vision. A few people were chattering to one another as the door hissed open and then shut. 

“I’m sorry,” Kira said. 

Derek didn’t turn to look over at her, because it would mean looking at Stiles, and he didn’t want to look at Stiles. 

He never wanted to look at Stiles ever again. 

“It’s not your fault,” Derek insisted quietly. “It’s mine. All of it. Everything is my fault.” 

“None of this is your fault,” Erica said from his other side while the technicians in the lab continued to twitter excitedly. Jennifer was giving them instructions about what to do with samples, and tests she wanted run. He could hear people moving around to various areas still within the space. 

“This was never supposed to be how things ended for us.” Derek closed his eyes, not wanting to stare up at the white, generic ceiling anymore. “I never should have brought us here.” 

“We came on our own,” Boyd reminded him. “We followed you.” 

“I should never have been the one in charge.” 

_“Shut up,”_ Kira muttered in Japanese. “You’ve never led us down the wrong path.” 

“You consider this to be a good outcome?” Derek demanded, frowning angrily and opening his eyes again. “I don’t see how this is going to end well for us.” 

“Have a little faith,” she said quietly. “We’ve survived worse. We’ll survive this.” 

Derek didn’t say anything in response to that, and he tensed when he felt fingers at his ankle, sliding up along his leg, over his hip, up his chest, Jennifer slowly moving up his body, watching her hand intently. 

“Perfection,” she said in awe. “Everything about you, perfect in every way.” 

He tensed further when she raised her other hand, holding a scalpel, eyes gleaming. He was _not_ going to have a good night, of that, he was certain. 

When she brought the blade down, he grunted when she sliced into him, right down the middle of his chest, from sternum to stomach. It wasn’t a deep wound, just enough that it actually broke skin and sliced through some muscle. He breathed hard when she pulled the blade away, and then a laugh escaped her as she bent down, grabbing gauze with her other hand and wiping away the blood. 

He knew the wound had healed. It always did. 

“Amazing,” she breathed, and Derek grunted louder when she stabbed the blade a little deeper this time. The cut was shorter, but much deeper, and she wiped the blood away again when she was done, watching the wound close up. “This is amazing. _You_ are amazing.” 

She moved the blade to another part of his chest, making little cuts and watching them heal up. Over and over again. 

He heard Kira inhale sharply and then let out a string of profanities beside him in furious French, for whatever reason, but he didn’t pay too much attention to her. 

Jennifer slicing into his skin over and over kind of had his complete attention. The only solace he found in this moment was that her attention was focussed on him. Hopefully he could spare his family any pain for the rest of the night. However much of it there was left, anyway.

“Oh, I could cut into you and watch you heal forever,” she whispered darkly. 

Derek tensed when she brought the blade down, waiting for her to slice into him again, but he saw two fingers tap lightly at her shoulder. When she turned, Derek saw a metal tray slam across her face and she crashed into the machine connected to him before hitting the ground. 

“How about you _not_ ,” Stiles snapped, grabbing at a scalpel off the table beside Derek’s bed as someone let out a startled shout. Stiles held it like a throwing knife and hurled it across the room, Derek hearing it connect with someone before Stiles ducked when gunshots exploded around them.

“Ow, _fuck_!” Stiles said, suggesting he’d been hit, and Derek didn’t understand. 

He did _not_ understand. Because Stiles had literally been lying dead beside him, so how the fuck was he now leaping over the end of Derek’s bed and slamming feet-first into someone rushing him? 

He couldn’t see.

It was nerve-wracking not being able to see anything. All he could do was tug uselessly at his wrists as he heard shouting, and more gunfire, and Stiles swearing every time he got hit somewhere. 

The door hissed open and shut a few times during the ordeal, but aside from the shouting and guns going off, that was the only sound. Derek didn’t hear any alarms, or any backup coming. 

Just Stiles’ constant swearing and ‘Ow’s as he got shot. 

And then, one last desperate hail of gunfire, and everything went quiet. 

So impossibly quiet. 

Derek’s chest rose and fell rapidly, blood on his forehead from how hard he was pressing against the metal bar keeping his head in place. He wanted to see, he wanted to know what was happening. Because _what was happening_?!

He jumped when Stiles appeared beside him, smears of blood along his skin from wounds that no longer existed. The entry and exit wounds on his temples were still there though, and Derek’s mouth opened, but he couldn’t say anything. 

“Well that sucked,” Stiles informed him, reaching down and beginning to undo all the straps tying him to the bed. “Getting shot hurts.”

“Hurry up, we don’t have much time,” Kira snapped.

“Yeah, yeah,” Stiles insisted, as he continued to work on Derek, who couldn’t take his eyes off him. “Shit, okay, new plan. You’ve uh, got too many. I’ll—one second.” 

Stiles turned away from him, walking right into the table he’d previously been lying _dead_ on. He cursed, muttered about stubbed toes, and pushed the table away before getting to work freeing Kira. 

Derek felt like he was about to lose his fucking _mind_. 

“How?” he demanded, unable to see Stiles anymore. “Stiles, _how_?! You were—you _looked_ dead!” 

“Poison,” Stiles said from out of his field of vision. “Melissa made a sort of suicide pill for me. I just had to make sure I didn’t take it before I needed to, so I just stayed really still the whole ride here and then took the poison when they were wheeling me into the room. I did _not_ expect to be dead for so long, that was kind of scary.” 

The inhale. Derek had thought—he’d mistaken it for Kira. She’d started swearing in French right afterwards, so he’d thought it was her. But it wasn’t. It had been _Stiles_ coming back to life, and she’d started swearing to cover that fact up. And she’d chosen French because Stiles understood French, and would know it meant they weren’t alone. She hadn’t said anything specific, but that made sense because anyone else in the room might’ve known French. 

They’d _planned_ this. Kira and Stiles had planned this entire thing, right down to Stiles coming back to life and how to cover that up when he did. 

He heard something snap loudly and then Kira moved out of the corner of his eye, rushing around him to Erica. Stiles was back at his side instantly, working at undoing all the straps and metal bars and cuffs. 

Derek was still staring at his temple. 

“Your wound...” 

Stiles’ gaze shifted to his briefly before he looked back down at what he was doing. 

“I told you, Jackson is into make-up.” 

Derek didn’t remember that. He hadn’t really paid much attention to anything about Stiles’ friends. All he knew was he really, _really_ hoped he wasn’t just hallucinating again. 

The door hissed loudly as it opened, Stiles’ head shooting up and one hand raised and fired twice in succession before he moved away from Derek and continued shooting. 

He must’ve picked up a handgun from the people who were in the room. 

Derek was extremely anxious the entire time he laid there, wishing at least one hand had been freed so he could _do_ something. 

Thankfully while Stiles was shooting at whoever was trying to get in—and _now_ Derek heard the alarm blaring—Kira had managed to free Erica. She turned to finish up with Derek while Erica moved to start on Isaac. 

After what felt like an age—Stiles had switched from a handgun to an automatic weapon at some point—Derek was free and he sat up, sliding off the end of the bed. He grabbed a gun lying on the ground, checked the magazine, and then turned without a word and shot Jennifer Blake’s unconscious form in the head. 

He was _not_ letting that _bitch_ live after what he was sure she was planning on doing to them. 

The time to play nice was over. Everyone who’d had a hand in this was _not_ walking out of this building alive. 

* * *

It felt like it took entirely too long to free everyone, but Stiles managed to hold off most of the people trying to get into the lab. It was easy because all he had to do was shoot a few rounds at them to force them back behind the corners at the end of the corridor, and continue to do so every time they tried to move forward. 

Of course, that meant he would eventually run out of bullets, but by the time they were all free, he still seemed to be doing fine on that front. 

Derek moved over to him as soon as Boyd and Isaac were free, and saw that Stiles had a lab coat tied around his waist with his butt hanging out. He supposed it made sense, if the idea was to trick them into thinking Stiles was dead, he would’ve been naked in the morgue. 

At least the rest of them had underwear, though Derek bent down to tug a pair of pants off one of the soldiers. They were a bit tight, but he managed to get them on. He didn’t bother with a shirt, though he _did_ find his boots by a desk near the wall and he grabbed those. 

Picking up another gun while the rest of his family grabbed clothes for themselves, he moved over to Stiles and took up position on the opposite side of the door. 

“Get some clothes on, I can’t think straight with your ass hanging out like that.” 

Stiles’ gaze shifted to him and he grinned. “Why Derek Hale, you say the most romantic things.” 

Derek gave him a look, but Stiles just smirked and obediently turned to find himself some pants. Derek kept watch, firing off a few rounds every time someone tried to come around either corner at the end of the corridor, Boyd moving to take Stiles’ place. His hands were empty, which suggested they didn’t have any more weapons. 

That made sense, the men in the room had probably used up most, if not all their ammo shooting at Stiles. He must’ve been really good at ducking, because Derek was surprised he hadn’t died. Gotten shot, clearly many times, but not _died_. 

It would’ve taken a while for him to come back, considering it would’ve been his third time dying. Kira had probably warned him about avoiding being killed. 

“What’s the plan?” Boyd asked. 

“We’re not letting Gerard Argent leave this building,” Derek said darkly. “You see someone who isn’t us, kill them.” 

Boyd nodded as the others came to join them. It looked like Boyd, Isaac and Stiles had gone the same route as him, grabbing only a pair of pants and their shoes. Stiles seemed to have located a pair that fit him well enough. 

The girls had more limited options, but Kira had pulled on Jennifer’s shirt and Erica had a lab coat buttoned up. It had three bullet holes in the chest, and was stained with blood. A lot of the people in the room had honestly likely shot each other trying to hit Stiles. 

Good. Derek was glad to know they’d taken each other out, saved Stiles the trouble. 

“So,” Stiles said, crouching slightly and looking down the corridor. “How do we get out of here? We just gonna kamikaze it and run out there?” 

Derek hummed. “Not a bad plan,” he offered. They’d gone that route in the past when low on ammo and in a tight spot. “We have two guns left, and there’s six of us. The four in the front can form a shield for the two in the back until we make it to the corner and take out the soldiers.” 

“I hate that game,” Isaac muttered. “I always play shield.” 

“Learn to shoot better,” Derek said, turning to hand his gun to Erica, since she was the best shot out of all of them. When Stiles held his up in inquiry, Derek shook his head. “Keep it. You’re new, you’ll take longer to come back so try not to die.” 

“Yeah, don’t slow us down,” Erica teased, nudging him. 

“I believe my slow return to life was beneficial just now, so a bit of gratitude would be nice,” Stiles reminded her, but he was smirking while readying himself. 

The door was still open, either stuck that way or having remained open because they were all crowded around it, triggering the automatic door opening. Derek glanced at Boyd, who nodded once. Exhaling, and knowing this was going to _suck_ , the two of them moved forward quickly, racing out of the room with Kira and Isaac behind them. 

There was shouting as the soldiers noticed and Derek’s arm jerked back when he got shot in the shoulder, then the thigh. The wounds burned, but he kept running until one hit him in the chest and he fell. He knew Kira would jump over him and take over as shield until he came back anyway. 

By the time he rolled back to his feet, Stiles and Erica were halfway down the corridor and he raced to catch up with them, Boyd stumbling to his feet beside him. They overshot the two of them just as Isaac’s head snapped back and he fell, but by then Derek had reached the corner and he grabbed at one of the guns. The barrel burned his hand, and released a volley of bullets right into his chest, but when he woke up again, Stiles and Erica were firing at their attackers from either side and Derek grabbed at the gun that had fallen near him and rolled onto his back so he could do the same. 

After a moment, everything went silent again save the alarm still blaring throughout the building. Derek had no idea where they were, but he was sure Gerard hadn’t brought them to some lab in the middle of downtown Sacramento or anything. They had to be in California still. Or maybe Nevada, since there was a lab there that they hadn’t gotten around to taking down. It was close enough to Beacon Hills, so that was the more likely option. Regardless, it was clearly somewhere out of the way to avoid detection. 

So that Gerard could do as he pleased without anyone there to stop him. 

“Which way?” Boyd asked while Isaac started picking up and putting down weapons, like he was trying to find one he was happy with. 

Derek glanced both ways, trying to remember _anything_ about their arrival, but it was too choppy and he’d been a little distracted at the time. 

Kira whistled and they both turned to her. She pointed at the wall, and when they followed her finger, they found arrows pointing either direction with departments written beneath them. 

One of them said ‘wellness centre,’ which was honestly the most likely place for someone like Gerard. It sounded like a place to rest, and considering what they knew about him, that was most likely where he was. 

It helped that it was in the same direction as ‘Administration and Offices,’ just in case. 

“That’s convenient,” Boyd said, looking at Derek. 

Derek couldn’t help but snort, raising his weapon and beginning to head in that direction, Boyd moving to flank his right side. Stiles moved up right beside him, gun up but eyes on Derek. 

“So,” he said easily, “I told you soulmates were a thing.” 

Huffing out a laugh, Derek nudged him lightly. “Soulmates are not a thing.” 

“Totally a thing,” Stiles argued. 

“Really guys?” Boyd demanded quietly. “Right now?” 

They reached the end of another corridor, Derek peeking around the corner before motioning for Boyd to take point. When Stiles moved to replace where Boyd had been standing, Derek whispered, “Not a thing.” 

“Totally a thing,” Stiles argued again, moving past Derek to watch Boyd’s back. 

“It is going to _suck_ being stuck with you two forever,” Kira muttered on her way past Derek. 

Erica’s grin as she fell in beside Derek suggested she disagreed. Derek couldn’t help smiling as well, because a part of him still felt like this was some weird fever dream. Maybe Gerard had done something to fuck with his head, and he was actually still strapped down and Stiles was still dead. 

He knew that wasn’t the case. He knew this was all real, that they were actually free right now, that Stiles was _alive_ and one of them, but it just felt... insane. 

It felt completely and utterly insane. 

When Boyd and Stiles rounded another corner, he heard Stiles let out a shout, and then a single gunshot. Derek flew forward, gun raised, but Stiles had one hand on Boyd’s wrist, having forced his weapon to the side so that he shot into the wall instead of the person in front of them. 

Derek saw red and barrelled forward, pushing past Stiles even as he shouted for him to _wait_. 

He didn’t wait. He grabbed Chris Argent by the throat and slammed him back into the wall _hard_. Stiles was beside him immediately, grabbing at his arm with his free hand, other still holding the automatic. 

“Derek, _wait_! He’s the one who called dad! He _helped_!” 

Even as the words were registering, he noticed that Chris was unarmed, and he was holding three sheathed swords. His, Boyd’s, Kira’s. He made no move to push Derek off, and stayed perfectly still as Derek’s hand crushed his windpipe. 

“Derek!” Stiles insisted. 

He turned to look at Boyd, and while he could tell he wasn’t happy about it, he inhaled deeply, then nodded just once. Kira made no move behind him, so Derek would take that as her consent as well. 

Looking back at Chris Argent, he inched closer so their noses were almost touching and bared his teeth. 

“This is your _one_ free pass,” he hissed right in his face. “I never, _ever_ want to see you again. _Ever_. If you come near me or mine, I will kill you. Are we clear?” 

“I understand,” Chris managed to get out. 

Derek clenched his jaw, then jerked away from him, Chris inhaling sharply and coughing, one hand reaching up for his throat. His eyes were on Derek while doing so, like he honestly wasn’t sure he wasn’t going to get shot in the back, but he held the swords out. 

Stiles took them all, wrapping his arm around them and taking a step back so Boyd and Kira could grab their weapons from him. 

“Get out,” Derek ordered, jerking his head to the side. 

Chris was still rubbing his throat, but he shifted around the rest of Derek’s family cautiously before hurrying down the corridor the same way they’d come. 

The exit was obviously that way. 

“He was helping,” Stiles insisted, holding Derek’s sword out to him. 

“We don’t need his help.” Derek snatched the weapon and pulled the strap over his shoulder, unsheathing his blade. He liked this better, it never ran out of bullets. “Not anymore.” 

Turning his back on the others, he continued moving forward. 

He knew they were headed in the right direction, because the further in they moved, the more guards there were. Every time one of Derek’s family fell, they got right back up, which was more than he could say for the people shooting at them. 

Derek wasn’t a killer. He didn’t murder people in cold blood. But these people weren’t worth losing sleep over. These people knew about them, knew what they were, and had tried to help a selfish, _rich_ man gain more power, more money, _and_ immortality. By torturing people who just wanted to live in peace.

That was all they wanted. To just be left alone and live in peace. 

So no. Derek wasn’t going to be losing any sleep over the bodies they dropped on their way to Gerard. And he certainly wasn’t going to lose any sleep over killing the huge man who’d put a bullet in Stiles’ brain personally. Because the second that particular individual came around the corner with a grenade, even though Derek knew he didn’t _have_ to, his automatic reaction was to plaster Stiles against the wall and protect him with his body. 

He didn’t die, the shrapnel hitting him in non-fatal places, but the second the jagged pieces of metal pushed their way out of his body and the wounds healed, he turned and stormed towards the motherfucker who’d tried to take Stiles away from him. 

The man shot at him desperately. He killed Derek five, six, _seven_ times. But he didn’t let that stop him. He kept moving forward until his gun ran out of bullets and Derek very slowly slid his sword through the man’s ribs. He wasn’t someone who relished in the death of others, but he would admit to standing there and watching the light fade from his eyes before he finally pulled his sword free. 

Boyd didn’t say anything about it, likely because he more than anyone understood. After all, Derek had never asked what Boyd had done to the men who’d raped and killed Erica all those years ago. By comparison, Derek had probably been rather tame. 

When they finally reached the final door, the ‘boss level,’ as Stiles called it, they stood staring at it for a long while. It felt like a lifetime since they started this entire thing, trying to get Gerard Argent off their backs, live peacefully without the fear of being lab rats hanging over them. 

They were finally going to end this. Kill Gerard and be done with it. 

Derek couldn’t help the uneasy feeling in his gut. He stared down at his wrist where the needle had gone in, and clenched his hand into a fist. 

Then he kicked open the door. 

Gerard Argent, for his part, didn’t react to their entrance. He was sitting up in an overly lavish bed, the back raised so that he could stay upright without having to exert himself as he watched them file in. 

Derek moved around the side of the bed, hand tightening and loosening around the hilt of his sword. Boyd went around the other side. Stiles came in third with his gun raised, aimed at the old man lying in bed. That, at least, got a reaction out of him, eyebrows rising. 

“Well now, isn’t _that_ interesting?” Gerard asked, smirking at Derek. “Looks like you _can_ share it after all.” 

“I didn’t share anything with him,” Derek said coldly. “You don’t choose this. It just happens.” 

“I guess we’re gonna find out, aren’t we?” Gerard asked pleasantly, unbuttoning his shirt just enough to pull it open, offering a clear shot at his heart, and staring at Derek intently. “Go ahead. Let’s see if you’re right.” 

“What’s he talking about?” Erica asked, standing at the foot of the bed with her gun raised. 

Derek clenched his jaw. “When they took me aside, it was for a blood transfusion.” 

“Shit,” Boyd hissed. “How much?” 

“Quite a bit,” Gerard said happily, eyes gleaming. “If only a few drops can cure diseases for a time, imagine what a few units straight from the source can do?” 

Kira moved up beside Derek. “He took your blood?” she asked. 

When he nodded without looking at her, she let out a small hum. 

“Then let’s take it back.” 

Before Derek could ask what she meant, Kira moved forward and her sword sliced through the air. It took a second for him to realize what she’d done, but when he looked back at Gerard, his eyes were wide and blood slowly began to flow freely down his neck. 

“Oh wow, that was—okay.” Derek looked at Stiles, who’d turned away, back of his hand against his mouth. “That’s—yeah, I’m gonna just...” He motioned the corner and took a few steps away from the bed. 

“You get used to it,” Isaac insisted with a grin. 

It hadn’t actually occurred to Derek that Stiles had never killed anyone before. This entire trek through the building had likely been adrenaline-fuelled, but he was probably going to have a breakdown later. 

Derek had grown up in a world like this, so this was nothing to him. Same for Boyd and Kira.

Isaac and Erica were just used to it now. 

Focussing back on Gerard, he saw that Kira and Boyd were both watching the man intently. Derek did the same, eyes locked on his neck. He was clearly dead now, the entire ordeal somehow anticlimactic when Derek thought of all the pain and suffering this man had wrought. 

Isaac ended up getting bored after ten minutes and left the room with Stiles to go find some real clothes. 

Erica disappeared five minutes after that to find out where they were and procure a vehicle. 

Boyd and Kira stayed with him until half an hour had passed, and then said they would go check on the others and make sure they could get out of there without any problems. It was probably morning by now, so depending on where they were, they might have to contend with traffic, which would be problematic if someone looked over and saw all of them half-naked and covered in blood. 

Derek stayed in the room watching Gerard Argent for an hour, eyes staring intently at the wound in his neck to make sure it wouldn’t heal. To make sure that he would _never_ come back, and to prove to himself that no matter what, they couldn’t share this. It was not something they could give away, it just _happened_. 

Gerard Argent didn’t come back. 

But Derek shot him in the head for good measure before he left the room. 

* * *

They went back to Beacon Hills. 

Derek had been right about the location, because the facility they’d been held at was the research lab just over the Nevada border. It wasn’t a particularly long drive, but considering Derek and the others had been drowning over and over again during their initial ride out there, it had felt a lot longer than it was. 

It was almost eleven-thirty in the morning on a Saturday in the middle of June. Everything was too _quiet_ , and Derek didn’t know how to handle that. 

The past twenty-four hours had been a whirlwind of activity and craziness. Stiles had died and come back. His family had been captured and escaped. Gerard Argent was gone, SilverCorp was either going to completely fall apart or start doing legitimate, _reputable_ research to further medicine with Chris Argent manning the helm. 

It was a lot, even for Derek, but he knew he just needed some time and sleep—and _food_ —so he could digest everything more calmly. 

They took one of the armoured trucks back, since there were six of them now and they couldn’t all fit in one car. After what they’d just been through, nobody wanted to split up into two vehicles. 

Boyd drove, and when they got into town, Stiles gave him directions to an abandoned house in the middle of the Preserve that encompassed a large portion of Beacon Hills. That location had been discussed as being a place for them to return to before he and Kira had left to join them in the hands of Gerard Argent. 

Stiles reminded them that his house was still a crime scene, so going there was a bad idea. 

Once they got to the dilapidated house, Derek walked in to find cots with blankets and bottles of water, along with a few energy bars and a cell phone. They were all quiet while they sat and ate. Stiles was the one who used the phone, calling his dad at the hospital to say they’d made it out. It wasn’t a very long conversation, and it was kind of stilted, but he promised they were all fine and that he’d drop by the hospital in a few hours. 

No one said anything when he finally hung up for a long while, and when Derek finally told them all that he was going to crash, Boyd said he’d take first watch. 

They slept in shifts, but every time Derek hope up, his eyes sought out Stiles. He wasn’t sleeping, he was just sitting on the partially destroyed stairs, staring down at his clasped hands, thoughts a million miles away. 

When he finally woke up for good, Stiles wasn’t on the stairs anymore, but Kira said he was out back on the porch and to leave him be for now. He only managed because he wanted answers on what had happened after Kira and Stiles had left the house. 

Apparently when they’d arrived at the hospital, John was already in a panic, because he’d gotten a call from Chris Argent about his son. Chris hadn’t found out until it was too late, and John had immediately called Parrish. He’d shown up at the house to all the bodies, but no sign of Stiles, and was actually _on_ the phone with John when Stiles and Kira walked into his hospital room. 

They hadn’t had much time to chat, because Chris had called back to say the others had been captured, which John felt meant something really bad because Chris had _never_ called him before in all the years they’d known one another, and he’d now called him at the hospital _twice_. 

Kira had wanted to go immediately, of course, but Stiles had stopped her. They didn’t have much time to plan, but they managed to come up with something workable. No one knew about Stiles, about the fact that he was immortal like them, so all they had to do was find a way to make sure he got brought to the same place as the rest of them so that he could get them all free. Kira allowed herself to be caught, then made a big show of how much Stiles’ death had hurt Derek, how broken he was, how he was completely useless in his grief. 

All of Gerard’s goons knew Stiles had been killed because Derek had taken out Kate, so by making a show of how gutted Derek was, two of the men broke into the morgue to steal Stiles’ ‘body’ and bring it back to the lab. All they had to do was make him look dead—courtesy of Jackson and his make-up skills—and ensure that he _was_ dead when he was brought up—courtesy of Melissa and her medical knowledge. 

“You know the rest,” Kira finished, biting into a chocolate-coated energy bar and licking her lips, looking at it so she could pull the wrapper down a bit further. “Honestly, I wasn’t entirely sure it was going to work.” 

“Then why did you do it?” Derek asked. 

She looked back up at him, licking chocolate off her thumb. “Because,” she said, “you’re my family. And even if we were going to spend the rest of eternity being poked and prodded and used as lab rats, I’d rather an eternity of agony with you than an eternity of freedom on my own.” 

Derek offered her a small smile, then pulled her into his side with one arm, kissing her temple. She leaned into him for a few moments before pulling away and he released her, looking towards the back of the run down house. 

“How’s he doing?” he asked. He knew Kira had spoken to Stiles at one point while he’d been asleep. 

Boyd too. He was sure Erica and Isaac had also tried, but they weren’t the best when it came to words of comfort. Erica wasn’t _terrible_ , probably better than Kira if he was honest, but he was sure Boyd had been the best for him. Derek hoped Erica and Isaac had at least hugged him or something. Just so Stiles at least got words of comfort from one half and physical affection from the other. 

“Processing,” Kira admitted quietly. “It wasn’t easy for any of us, but...” 

“He’s different,” Derek said, repeating Boyd’s words from the night before. Or early that morning? Either way, they weren’t any less true. “John?” he asked. 

Kira’s lips turned down slightly, but she nodded. That couldn’t have been an easy conversation. And things were only going to get harder from here on out. 

But with SilverCorp out of the picture, hopefully things would be a bit easier. Stiles still had time with his dad, he could stick around for a few more years. When it started getting a bit more noticeable that Stiles wasn’t aging, they could always have John fly out to see them. Or they could come back and visit and just stay out of sight as much as possible. 

They’d figure it out. Derek had lost his family when he’d died. He wasn’t going to deprive Stiles of his for as long as he could have him. They’d figure it out. 

“I think he’s right, you know,” Kira said, Derek turning back to her. 

“He seems to often be right,” Derek sighed. “But about what, specifically?” 

“Soulmates.” 

Derek gave her an annoyed look, but she smiled and nudged him, finishing up her protein bar and folding the wrapper into a tiny square. 

“Do you remember Boyd? When we dreamt of Erica? How he was?” 

It had been a long time ago, but Derek did remember, so he nodded. Kira nodded back. 

“That was what you looked like. In that building in Sacramento. The look on your face, it was the same as Boyd’s when we all woke up. We knew something had happened to Stiles because of how you reacted. Because he was the one person you’ve ever wanted, and someone was trying to take him from you.” She sighed, leaning back and resting her weight against her forearms, staring up at the ceiling. “I don’t know why we were chosen. Whether this is a punishment or a curse or some kind of weird reward. But I like to think there’s a reason for each and every one of us, and maybe Stiles was always going to be like us. Maybe that’s why you met Harrison Stilinski, why you kept in touch with his family, why you called all those years ago, spoke to a little boy called Mischief, and then couldn’t stop yourself from continuing to call. Maybe Stiles was always going to be yours.” 

“Maybe,” Derek said. “But I’m the reason he died.” 

“I think you’re also the reason that he didn’t stay that way.” Kira offered him a small smile. “I think you _did_ save him, whether you want to believe that or not.” 

“If you start singing Disney songs over there, I’m leaving,” Isaac called from one of the neighbouring rooms. 

“Promise?” Kira called back. Isaac snapped something rude at her, which had her retaliating, and then Erica gleefully joined in so that the three of them were just snapping insults at each other. 

Derek sighed and decided now was as good a time as any to go out and talk to Stiles, make sure he was okay, discuss... well, whatever they were going to do now. 

He made sure to make enough noise on his way out, just so that Stiles knew he was coming. He wanted to give him the option to walk away before Derek reached him if he wasn’t in the mood to talk. 

The sun had already started its descent back down, and Derek knew if Stiles wanted to go see his dad at the hospital that he should probably do it sooner rather than later since visiting hours would eventually end. 

Then again, he had a friend on the inside, so Stiles could probably sneak in whenever he wanted.

When he stepped out onto the back porch, he found Stiles leaning forward on the railing, staring out at the trees. It looked like it was rotted at the base, but not so much that Stiles’ weight risked it snapping completely. 

He didn’t turn his head when Derek approached him, but he _did_ let out a small laugh. 

“Sure, now that I _can’t_ die from a heart attack, you choose to make your presence known?” 

Derek smiled, stopping beside him but not testing the strength of the railing by leaning on it, instead just standing beside him and looking out at the forest alongside him. “Gotta keep things interesting for you.” 

“True, a mind like mine definitely needs to be kept active. Don’t want it to start rotting and deteriorating like Isaac’s.” 

“He’s gonna be so glad to have _another_ person here to constantly make fun of him.” 

Stiles just hummed, but Derek saw he was smiling. It was a small smile, like he was really only half-there, the rest of his mind elsewhere. Probably on his future and what was coming. 

They stood in silence for a moment, Derek thinking about what to say. When nothing really came to him, he just went with the first thing his brain grabbed hold of. 

“That was smart.” When Stiles turned to him, arching a confused eyebrow, Derek said, “What you did. To get in.”

Understanding dawned on Stiles’ face and he shrugged, then shifted his weight slightly so he could nudge Derek. “Well, rumour has it I’m annoyingly smart.” He smiled at him and winked. 

Derek let out a soft laugh at that, because he wasn’t wrong. And now he would be annoyingly smart for the rest of time. “Yeah. But it was a good idea. Pretending to be dead, getting them to bring you in like that.”

“Yeah, it was, you know,” Stiles straightened, hands on the railing and leaning back slightly. The wood creaked ominously, but continued to hold until he rocked forward again and let his hands drop. “One of those plans that would only work once.”

“Once was enough,” Derek insisted. 

“Yeah.” Stiles reached up with one hand, tapping the side of his fist lightly against the railing a few times and pressing his lips together. 

“What happened with um, the house?” Derek asked. When Stiles gave him another confused look, he elaborated. “The bodies.” 

“Oh. Um, well it was already kind of in the system as an attempted murder-slash-kidnapping when Chris called.” Stiles shrugged. “Dad’s gonna handle it with Parrish, figure something out. Probably make like a weird gang war happened in our living room and I escaped my captors or something.” He frowned. “How come you didn’t call the police? When you knew what was happening, why didn’t you call someone? You had a phone, because the house phone kept ringing, and you’re the only one who knows that number.”

“Honestly—I didn’t think about it.” Derek wondered if that would’ve made a difference, or if it would’ve just gotten a lot of good men and women killed. “The police isn’t really something I consciously think about, but in a way I think it’s better that it happened like this. Nobody else got hurt.” 

“True,” Stiles offered. 

“I’m more surprised your neighbours didn’t call when they heard all the shooting.” 

“Summer,” Stiles said with a smile, then laughed. “Yeah, they uh, most of the block is empty during the summer. People travel. Only ones who might’ve been around to hear anything are Mrs. Frenell across the street, but her hearing’s starting to go so I doubt she noticed anything, and Dr. Geyer a few houses down. He was probably on the night shift at the hospital.”

That actually explained a lot. Derek remembered Stiles speaking rather loudly before they’d left, and even though Derek had cut him a sharp look at the time, he hadn’t bothered lowering his voice. He’d already known, even then, that the block was mostly empty. 

“Convenient,” Derek said, and Stiles let out another small laugh. 

When Stiles said nothing else, Derek staring at him intently, he figured that he couldn’t let this sit awkwardly and just bit the bullet. “How are you?” 

“I’m fine,” Stiles said immediately. 

Derek gave him a look and Stiles made a face before turning to look out at the trees again. The muscles of his neck were tense and Derek wanted to reach out and hold him but honestly wasn’t sure of his welcome. 

“It’s a lot. You know, with the whole...” He motioned himself with one hand, eyes still on the trees. “On top of that I kind of—killed a lot of people today, so...”

“I’m sorry,” Derek said softly. “I never wanted this for you. I wanted you to be happy, find someone, have a family.” 

Stiles nodded slowly a few times, eyes still on the trees. “I am happy,” he said quietly. “I did find someone. I—have a family.” His eyes shifted back to Derek then, like he wasn’t entirely sure of the statement, and was more _asking_ if it _could_ be a statement. 

Derek sighed, and finally reached out for him, pulling Stiles into his chest and hugging him tightly. They were almost the same height, but somehow he felt like that just helped them fit together perfectly. He pressed his lips to Stiles’ temple, the make-up still there but a little faded after all this time, not to mention the blood and sweat probably hadn’t helped. 

“What happens now?” Stiles asked into his neck, gripping the back of borrowed his shirt tightly. 

Tightening his hold on him, Derek pressed his cheek against Stiles’ hair, one arm wrapped around his shoulders and the other rubbing up and down his spine. “You told your dad?” 

“Yeah,” he said quietly. “Jackson, Scott and Melissa too. Didn’t—really have much of a choice.” 

Pausing for a moment so he could steel himself, Derek asked, “What did they say?” 

He felt Stiles shrug against him, felt his muscles tense as he recalled what had happened. “They were pretty freaked out. You know—can’t really blame them. It’s kind of a lot.” 

He tightened his hold on Stiles then, trying to bring him comfort, even though he knew he couldn’t take away that kind of hurt. 

“Yeah,” he agreed. Another pause, then he asked, almost hesitantly, “And your dad? How did he take it?”

Stiles sighed against his neck again, turning his head a little and forcing Derek to lift his cheek while he settled. Stiles had his own resting against Derek’s shoulder, and Derek lowered his face to press his lips to any part of him he could reach. 

“He was sad,” Stiles admitted. “You know, happy I wasn’t dead, but sad. He knows what this means for me. Can’t have a normal life. Can’t stay here. But he’s glad I’m not alone. He’s glad I have you.” 

Hearing that hurt. Hearing that John was sad his son was going to live forever hurt, because it meant that John, like Stiles before he’d become immortal himself, had always known that immortality wasn’t everything people thought it was. 

“I’m sorry,” he said, the words sounding inadequate. He knew Kira was right, that it was entirely likely Stiles was _always_ going to be one of them, but he couldn’t help wonder if it was his doing. If wanting Stiles had _made_ him like them. 

“It’s like you said,” Stiles insisted, shifting to pull away. Derek let him, though didn’t release him entirely, letting his hands slide down along Stiles’ arms before taking both of his in his own. Stiles stared down at their linked hands, running both thumbs lightly back and forth along Derek’s skin. “You don’t choose this life. It just happens. I’m lucky that I knew about it before it happened. Not like with you.” He looked up at him. 

“Yeah.” Honestly, Derek didn’t know if that was better, or worse. 

“So,” Stiles said, swinging one hand slightly and making Derek’s go with it, “I ask again: what happens now?” 

“Well,” Derek sighed, looking out at the trees, “SilverCorp’s not a problem anymore. You’re still young, so if you want you can probably finish school. Go back to RPI and get your diploma. Stay here with your dad for a few years.”

“Would that be okay?” Stiles asked, almost hesitantly. 

“You’re new,” Derek said with a shrug. “You’re from this time. You can afford to live a normal life for a while longer. And you kind of have one of those baby faces,” he teased, reaching up to poke at one of Stiles’ cheeks, causing him to splutter. “You can probably get away with it until you should be early thirties. You can still have this for a while.” 

“Well all I gotta say is thank _God_ I died at twenty-one, because if I’d gotten killed before legal drinking age, there would’ve been _hell_ to pay.” 

Derek snorted at that and rolled his eyes, but he was glad Stiles was at least making jokes. 

“What about you?” Stiles asked. 

“What about me what?” 

“What are you gonna do? If I stay with dad.” 

Derek smiled and let go of one of Stiles’ hands so he could reach up and cradle his cheek, brushing his thumb lightly beneath his eye. “I waited for you before. I can wait again. I never had this with my family. They were there, and then they weren’t. None of us got the chance to say goodbye to the people we loved. But you do. You have that. We’re not gonna take that away from you. So if you want to stay, _stay_. We’ll leave you with some money, and keep calling to check in, and when the time comes where you’re ready to go, we’ll all be waiting for you.” 

Stiles stared at him for a long moment before nodding. “Thank you.” 

Derek smiled and leaned forward, kissing him lightly before pressing his forehead against his and inhaling deeply. “I’m sorry I hurt you. I’m sorry I didn’t want to try. Before.” 

“I get it. You’re immortal. It would hurt. Guess you didn’t expect to be stuck with me for all eternity.” 

“I don’t consider this ‘being stuck with you,’” he informed him, kissing him again. 

“Wait a few hundred years, you might change your mind.” 

“Never.” Derek kissed him again, twice in succession, then pulled away, hand still on his cheek and brushing lightly against his skin before letting it fall. “We probably shouldn’t stay much longer. We’ve caused enough problems.” 

“Where are you guys gonna go?” 

“I don’t know.” Derek leaned sideways against the railing, hearing it groan and immediately straightened again. “Might travel across the US and Canada. Maybe go down to Mexico.”

“I hear Cancun is fun,” Stiles teased, and laughed when Derek made a face. “Actually, speaking of Cancun, I was thinking... Um, since Scott and Jackson know, I thought maybe... they could be the new me. Not like, immortal, obviously. But—the Stilinski tradition. Parent to child kind of thing.” He shrugged. “I don’t know if Jackson wants kids, but Scott does. I thought maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to have people who are normal know about us. I mean, turned out pretty great the last time.” Stiles motioned himself and waggled his eyebrows. 

“Stiles, you died,” Derek reminded him flatly. 

“Okay yes,” Stiles pointed a finger at him, “but I was happy. I knew that no matter how lonely I got, every now and then, the phone would ring and I would hear from dad’s friend Derek. And hey who knows, maybe ten generations down the McCall line, Isaac’s own soulmate will show up.” 

“Soulmates aren’t a thing,” Derek insisted with an exasperated sigh. 

“Totally a thing,” Stiles argued with a smirk, turning back to the railing and leaning his forearms against it, looking back out at the trees. 

“Not a thing,” Derek repeated, following his gaze. 

“Totally a thing.” 

“You can keep going all day, can’t you?” 

“ _All_ day,” Stiles confirmed. 

“I’ll just let you have this one then,” Derek said and he saw Stiles fist-pump out of the corner of his eye before he rolled them. 

They stood together in silence for a long moment. Derek knew they should get going, that Stiles should get back, but once they parted ways, he didn’t know when he would see him again. He found some comfort in the knowledge that he _would_ , that Stiles was always going to _be_ there, but now that he had him in his life, _really_ in his life, it was going to be hard without him. 

Stiles had literally been dead for less than twenty minutes, and they were the worst twenty minutes of Derek’s entire life. And considering how old he was, that was saying something. He didn’t want anything to happen to him, but he knew for now things would be okay. 

For the moment, at least the next ten years, Stiles would be safe. He was still a secret. Everyone who knew about him barring the friends and family he’d told were dead. Derek didn’t even know if Chris Argent knew. Sure, Stiles had been _there_ , but he may not have known Stiles had been shot. It was possible he had no idea Stiles was immortal. 

He would be fine. Derek _knew_ he would be fine. He was part of this century, this was his time, so until he joined them, he would be okay. 

“Will you tell me?” Stiles asked after they stood in silence for a moment longer. “About you? About everything?”

Derek smiled, leaning over to wrap one arm around his shoulders and kiss his temple. “Yeah, Stiles. I will. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.”

**TBC...**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional Tags/Warnings:  
> \- Derek and team are drowned in this chapter repeatedly in an attempt to keep them contained. It's not really depicted, but if drowning is an issue for you, then you can skip to the next scene as soon as Derek feels water splashing at his ankles when he's placed in a plexiglass coffin. It's brought up again afterwards but not described as much as that first part.  
> \- Derek comments on how cancer has affected Gerard. I know cancer is a sensitive topic for some people so I wanted to at least address it.  
> \- There is some torture in this, mostly because they're immortal and people want to see their limitations. Aside from the drowning and tying them down, the worst it gets is Jennifer enjoying cutting at Derek and watching him heal over and over.  
> \- Derek and co are very violent and angry in this chapter. They are dark characters in this fic. Derek relishes watching the man who shot Stiles die by his hand, and Kira slits someone's throat.  
> \- There is a brief reference to what Erica went through when she died. It's very brief, and not depicted, but just mentioning it in case. 
> 
> Obligatory Copyright Shit:  
> \- Teen Wolf (c) Jeff Davis  
> \- The Old Guard (c) Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernández


	8. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Additional tags/warnings at the end of the chapter.

Eric Haki stared up at the board and couldn’t help the annoyed sigh that escaped him. After all this time, all these damn technological advancements, all the fucking _changes_ , and _still_ flights couldn’t be on damn time. Why the fuck was teleportation not a thing yet?

He didn’t want to sit in the dumb airport for another two hours. The holographic ads that popped up in front of him as he walked kept causing him anxiety and more than once he’d reached for a weapon before remembering he didn’t have it on him. 

Because he was in an airport. And carrying a firearm in an airport was a bad idea. Still, he wished there was a way to turn the damn things off, they startled years off his life every time they popped up, and considering he had an unlimited amount of years, that was saying something. 

He just wanted to _get there_. He was tired, and cranky, and looking forward to some peace and quiet and relaxation. To time spent lounging on the beach beside the love of his life and eating good food made by his family and just... being alone with them and _happy_. 

“I can’t believe you bought me a fucking _island_ ,” Michael Silkinski insisted, coming up beside him and leaning heavily into him. His hands were still wet from having used the bathroom, and he used Eric’s shirt to dry them instead of his own. He was an asshole like that. “You know that’s ridiculous, right? Because that’s ridiculous.” 

Eric just smiled and leaned over to kiss at his head, wrapping one arm around his lover’s shoulders and pulling him closer. “Happy twenty-first birthday.” 

The look he got for that was two parts annoyed, one part defeated. “Oh haha, eighty years later, still not funny.” 

Eric made a debatable noise. “Little funny.” 

“Shut up.” Michael bumped him with his hip, but he was smiling, like he was always happy when his little mannerisms rubbed off on Eric. It made sense, after all. They’d been together for a long time.

Not as long as the others in their family, but long enough. 

“Delayed _again_?” Amelia Reina demanded, coming up on his other side. “Ugh, we’re _never_ gonna get there! I just wanna sit on the beach with a frozen drink and get a massage. I just want to _relax_.” 

“Sounds like _you_ will be relaxing more than _I_ will, considering I’ll be the one _making_ said frozen drink and _giving_ you said massage.” Vann Sonse moved up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist and kissing the top of her head. 

“You know that I’ll return the favour,” Amelia insisted saucily, winking over her shoulder. 

“Keep it in your pants, we’re in public,” Zach Lochie muttered, coming up beside Michael and squinting up at the board. “Bad enough these two fuck like rabbits every quiet moment we get, I don’t like that their relationship has rekindled the flame of your own libidos.” 

“You’re just jealous you don’t get laid on a regular basis,” Michael said with a grin. 

“No shit, it’s unfair,” Zach agreed, turning to the last of their group when she approached them with a coffee. “We need to find ourselves some immortal baes too.”

Rika Yuukhi shrugged one shoulder, sipping at her drink before licking her lips. “I rather enjoy our platonic relationship where I just kill you whenever you’re being annoying.” 

“Yeah,” Zach said dryly, looking back up at the board. “Me, not so much.” 

“This plane better not crash like the one back in 2064,” Amelia said sourly. “Being stuck on that raft in the middle of the damn ocean for six days was _not_ fun.” 

“At least we got to watch Zach almost get eaten by a shark,” Rika argued. “That was fun.” 

“That was _not_ fun,” Zach snapped. Rika made a debatable noise, but Eric knew it had been stressful for all of them. To be fair, it had been Zach’s fault for antagonizing the shark, and it had taken them a while to get him free. 

On the bright side, Zach now had a newfound love for swords and was very appreciative of them since Rika had actually managed to salvage hers from the plane wreckage and was the reason they’d managed to free Zach. 

“Why did it go after me _anyway_?”

“You know why,” Rika said, sipping her drink. 

Zach ignored her, continuing with, “Why didn’t it go for this pale motherfucker?” He motioned Michael. “He looks more appetising than I do.” 

“I agree _completely_ ,” Eric said, leaning over to kiss at Michael’s neck, biting at his pulse and laving his tongue over his skin. 

“Great, now they’re gonna be necking for the next hour.” Rika sighed explosively. “I’m going back to the coffeeshop, maybe something less disgusting is happening over there.” 

“I’ll go with you,” Zach said. 

“No you won’t.” 

“Yes I will!” he insisted, their voices fading as they moved further away. 

“I think we should go with them,” Vann said slowly. “Just, you know, in case Rika decides she doesn’t care that people know he’s immortal.” 

“We’ll see you two lovebirds at the gate.” Amelia nudged Eric. 

He just hummed, face still buried in Michael’s neck, trying to suck a hickey into his skin. He knew it was a fruitless endeavour, they never stayed, but he never stopped trying. 

Eventually, he went back to kissing lightly at his neck, up his jaw, and dropped another kiss on his lips. Michael grinned and turned to face him, dragging both hands through his hair and pulling him closer so they could kiss properly. 

When they pulled apart, Eric said, “Happy birthday.” 

“Are you ever going to stop celebrating my birthday?” 

“Never.” He leaned in to kiss him lightly once more, lingering for a few seconds. 

“Is this still about when you missed it in 2020? I told you it was fine.” 

“I can’t celebrate the day you were born?” Eric asked. “I can’t be happy that you’re alive?” 

“You didn’t have to buy me an _island_ ,” he argued. 

Eric shrugged one shoulder. “We can’t keep them long anyway. After a few decades people assume the owner’s dead and just put it up for sale again.” 

Michael stared at him. “Wait, have you owned this island before?” 

“Not this one, no. But others. Amelia likes the beach, and much as Rika complains about the heat, I know she likes being out somewhere peaceful where it’s just us.” 

“Yeah.” Michael beamed at him. “Spending time alone where it’s just us sounds perfect after this last job we just did.” 

“No work talk.” Eric kissed him again to shut him up. “We are officially on vacation for the next few years.” 

“Sounds perfect.” Michael pulled him back in for another kiss, and Eric let him, never getting tired of kissing him, of _being_ with him. Of living enough lives to finally get to a moment where he met this amazing man, and got to have him for the rest of time. 

He didn’t remember the first time he died. 

But he remembered the first time he decided that he wanted to _live_. 

**END.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed the ride -throws confetti- 
> 
> Additional Tags/Warnings:  
> \- There is reference to a plane crash from the past that the team survived, as well as a shark attack that was 1000000% Isaac's own damn fault (just sayin'!) 
> 
> Obligatory Copyright Shit:  
> \- Teen Wolf (c) Jeff Davis  
> \- The Old Guard (c) Greg Rucka and Leandro Fernández

**Author's Note:**

> Come chill with me on [Tumblr](https://isthatbloodonhisshirt.tumblr.com/).


End file.
